Marble Roller Coaster

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DJ2505
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Marble Roller Coaster

Post by DJ2505 »

I understand that for some projects they are categorized under level of schooling. For the Marble roller coaster how can I make this project into high school level? Or what am I missing from the experiment that makes it high school level?
bfinio
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Re: Marble Roller Coaster

Post by bfinio »

Hi - I believe at the middle school level this project only involves qualitative discussion of potential and kinetic energy and the tradeoff between them. At the high school level you could do quantitative measurements of the marble's potential and kinetic energy as it progresses through the track. For example, you could do this by taking a slow-motion video of the marble, use that to measure the marble's velocity (velocity = distance traveled / time between video frames), and use that to calculate the kinetic energy. You can similarly calculate potential energy by measuring the marble's height. This would also allow you to investigate the amount of energy lost to friction as the marble progresses through the track. Hope this helps.
bfinio
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Re: Marble Roller Coaster

Post by bfinio »

Oops - I replied a little too soon. It looks like we do have a more advanced version of this project, but it only involves measuring potential energy at the very beginning of the track and kinetic energy at the very end. You can make more measurements throughout the track using the slow motion video method I described above.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure
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