Whoa! The Blog of Phyz has suddenly gone Stephen King prolific! I love it. Many thanks to Bree Barnett Dreyfuss and Dan Burns.
When the following gem percolated up through my Facebook feed. I was inspired to create a lesson. Take a look at the clip, and we'll proceed from there.
Backyard Water Slide Fail
[Note: as with all things YouTube, the specific video link above may someday go blank. Searching for "Backyard water slide fail" will likely find a working link. And it's always a good idea to download the video for posterity. YouTube discourages this, but underestimates your tenacity. And your Fair Use protection.]
My mind expanded the story: why did our water slide enthusiast overshoot the target pool? Why did they put the pool where they did? An AP Physics 1 exercise (perhaps shop-worn even in these early years of AP1) overcame me. So I hacked away.
When trying to fit a physics lesson to a real-life situation, there's always the question of how best to balance "real-world"-ism and "first-year students can solve it"-ism. I did my best; you might have done it differently. I think my distance estimates are reasonable; I didn't do heavy duty video analysis.
My process does get a wee bit ugly, but that's why it's an AP Physics 1 exercise, not a Conceptual Physics exercise. But you get energy, rotation, and projectiles in the mix, so it's a worthwhile activity. And it involves video of a guy hurting himself: few things appeal so viscerally to the teenage sensibilities.
In any case, here's my expansive spin on the video clip.
YouTube Physics: The Ultimate Backyard Water Slide @ TPT
And if you wish to add even more mechanics problem clichés, you could ask how this would have gone down if repeated on the moon.
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