You spin me right round, baby, right round ...

Well, my accelerometer anyway.

I'm in the middle of my first year teaching AP Physics C and we ended last semester with rotation. Therefore, I'm looking at any spinning or round thing in a different light. I was at the RAFT San Jose store and saw giant wooden circles with rough edges for cheap. And this is RAFT cheap so I think it was <$4 for 8 of them. I snagged them unsure of what I would do with them and took them home to be inspired.

I ended up sanding down the rough edges to find they were very sturdy and furniture grade plywood. Since they were leftover from some manufacturing process they were perfect circles. I decided to make them into giant tops/ turn tables. I envisioned students playing with them at the onset of this unit to observe changes in rotational quantities, maybe use some slow mo video or accelerometers. Or perhaps we could use them for conservation of angular momentum. The possibilities are endless!

I reviewed some geometry and found how to find the center of the circle. I measured equivalent length chords around the circle and marked halfway across each chord. From this halfway point I drew a line perpendicular to the chord towards the center of the circle. Doing this a few times gave me a point, or at least a small area of the "center" of the circle. Since I was drilling a big hole in the middle I figured close was going to be ok.

We have a drill press in our mini-shop in the Physics prep room. I used a 7/8" drill bit to drill a hole in each disk. This allowed me to fit a 1/2" PVC pipe through the hole with a bit of wiggle room. Going down to a 1/2" bit was too small of a hole for the PVC to fit so the hole had to be a bit bigger. But "wiggle room" meant that if I turned the PVC axle the disk wouldn't rotate at the same speed. Hmm...

I used smooth 1/2" PVC endcaps on the bottom of about a foot of 1/2" PVC for my axle. The endcaps had the manufacturers logo on it so they did not have a perfectly smooth bottom. If it bothers me enough I may go back and file them smooth. I found that wrapping the PVC with a bit of masking tape increased the diameter of the pipe enough to fit in the hole in the disk snugly. Through trial and error I found about 3 times around worked well. Too tight and I was banging the axle against the ground hoping the disk's inertia would drive it down onto the tape, sometimes that worked. I put a second end cap on the other end of the axle for comfort.

In the end I had 8 tops for use. By the time I made them it was towards the end of the rotation unit but they were still helpful. When students were reviewing torque, angular momentum, etc. I left them out with their review sheets. Students would grab them to rotate and discuss vector directions with their partners.

I also played with the Physics Toolbox app's accelerometer by placing it on one of them and giving it a few turns. Next year I'd like students to investigate the acceleration recorded by the phone at different radii as they turn it with the same speed. Below is a quick video of the attempt.

I had considered sharpening down dowels to a point as the axles instead. But, I teach high school and a sharpened dowel through the center of this disk might become a spear with a shield so ... no.