Name: ___________________________

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Department of Mechanical Engineering
ME 232 Dynamics

TEST 1
Please show your work.
Partial credit will be given if you set up a problem correctly.
No credit will be given for correct answers with no supporting work.

1. The Saint Louis Rams nearly lost a play-off game after field-goal kicker Jeff Wilkins
sent a 132 ft. field-goal attempt (that is, he kicked the ball from the 34 yard-line)
straight into the goal-post cross-bar, which is 10 ft. above the ground. He kicked
the 2 lb. ball at an angle of = 30.

10 feet

vo

132 feet

Treat the ball as a point mass, and neglect wind resistance.

(a) (20 pts) What is the velocity v o with which the ball was kicked?
(b) (10 pts) If instead Wilkins kicked the ball at = 30 from the 50 yard line, the
ball would have needed an initial speed of 86.1 ft/sec to slam into the crossbar. During such a kick, the kickers foot is in contact with the ball for 0.01
sec. What is the average magnitude of the force that would need to be applied
to the ball in this case?

2. The 1850 lb car and its 150 lb driver are travelling at 60 mph over a hill with
radius of curvature 498 ft. The centers of mass of both the driver the car are 2 ft
above the roads surface.
2 ft.

498 ft.

(a) (10 pts) If the driver is not wearing her seatbelt, what force does the car seat
exert on her as she drives over the top of the hill?
(b) (20 pts) At the top of the hill, the driver slams on her brakes. The wheels lock,
and the car slides with a coefficient of friction k = 0.7. What is her initial
deceleration due to braking?
(c) (20 pts) The driver smashes into the crash barrier. The row of plastic barrels
she strikes can be modeled as a spring of stiffness k = 50 lb/in, and can be
assumed massless. If the speed of the car immediately after impact is 30 mph
and a coefficient of friction k = 0.7 exists between the locked wheels and the
road, how far into the barrier will the car travel before stopping? Assume that
the driver fastens her seatbelt in the flat stretch of road and survives the crash to
develop a cure for cancer.

3. Ms. A water-skis by holding an inextensible cable connected to boat B, which moves

with a velocity v B = 40 km/hr. Ms. A accelerates relative to the boat by rotating
through the boats wake. At the instant shown below, the tow cable is oriented =
30 from the direction the boat travels, and Ms. As actual path is = 25 from
direction the boat travels (55 from the tow cable.)

Ms. As rotation rate, which can be calculated as = 0.819 rad/s, is slowing at =

1 rad/s 2 in this instant.
(a) (10 pts) What is her speed |v A | ?
(b) (10 pts) What is her acceleration?