PHYS 2010 Written HW 5 Name: ___________________

Lab Time:

1) Conservation of Energy

Pull up the “Energy Skate Park” simulation produced by our friends right here at PhET:
bit.ly/Phys2010Energy

Note the capitalization. If you have trouble with the link, you can also find it by googling
“PhET Energy Skate Park Basics”. You may need to allow flash to run in your browser to
view the simulation.

Choose the “Intro” section of the simulation. You may wish to check the box labelled
“bar graph” to pull up a tool that can help you visualize the kinetic and potential energy.

For the rest of this worksheet, assume that the skater has a mass of 70kg.

For the first two sections, assume also that her skateboard is so good that we can neglect
friction for the time being (probably she is using Bones Swiss ceramic bearings).

A) First Skate Track (the one shaped like a parabola or a “U”)

Turn on the “grid” with the button in the upper right hand corner. Place the skater at
the top of the ramp on the left side, and verify that her board is at a height of 6m off the
ground. Turn the simulation on and let the skater go back and forth.

i) At which point or points in her motion is her potential energy at a maximum? At

which point or points is her potential energy at a minimum?

ii) Let’s define the potential energy to be zero at the location where her potential
energy is at a minimum. How much potential energy does she have when her
potential energy is at a maximum?
PHYS 2010 Written HW 5 Name: ___________________

iii) How much kinetic energy does she have when her kinetic energy is at a
maximum? At which point or points does this occur, and why?

iv) What is her maximum speed?

v) Does the skater’s maximum speed depend on her mass? To test this with the
simulation, you can turn on the “speed” meter and use the “mass” slider to
adjust her size.

vi) To understand the result about the skater’s speed and mass, repeat your
calculation for her maximum speed, but this time, do it with symbols (mass m,
velocity v, max height h, and acceleration g). Give a formula for her maximum
velocity in terms of these variables. Does the formula depend on her mass? Does
this agree with your answer to the previous question?
PHYS 2010 Written HW 5 Name: ___________________

vii) Based on conservation of energy, what can you say about the maximum height
the skater reaches on the right side of the track compared to the left side of the
track? Explain your reasoning with words, equations, or both.

B) Third Skate Track (the one shaped like a lopsided “w”)

Switch tracks, but keep the grid on, and place the skater with her board 4m off the
ground on the left side of the track. Friction remains off.

i) Predict the maximum height that this skater will reach on the right hand side of
the track. Test your prediction with the simulation. How does the “bump” in the
middle of the track change your answer compared to the previous problem?

ii) Approximately how much kinetic energy is the skater going to have at the top of
the bump in the middle?

iii) Where will the skater be going faster, at the bottom of the left dip, or the
bottom of the right dip? Explain why, with words or equations. Test your
prediction by observing the simulation with the speed meter displayed. It may
also help to run the simulation in slow motion, since the differences are subtle!
PHYS 2010 Written HW 5 Name: ___________________

iv) For whichever location you answered (left dip or right dip), calculate exactly how
much more KE she will have at that point compared to the other.

C) Skate Parks with Friction

Now let’s assume friction comes in to play—she’s now skating with some cheap, ABEC-3
bearings. Switch the simulation to the one including friction by selecting “friction” at the
very bottom center of the screen. Turn the grid back on and select the “Bar Graphs”
option in the upper right corner if you found it helpful last time.

i) Select the parabolic (“U”-shaped) track, and place the skater part way up the left
side, 4m off the ground. Before you start the simulation, make a prediction
about the height the skater will reach on the right hand side after her first trip
across the track. Will it be higher than 4m, lower than 4m, or exactly 4m? Explain
your answer using words, equations, or both.

ii) Run the simulation and estimate the actual maximum height that the skater
reaches on the right (make sure the “friction” slider is set exactly in the middle).
Based on this, determine how much thermal energy was generated by the skater
during her during her first trip from the left side to her maximum height on the
right side
PHYS 2010 Written HW 5 Name: ___________________

iii) If there had been no friction, how much faster would the skater have been going
when she reached this same point on the right hand side (note: we’re asking
about the difference when she reaches the height you found in the previous
problem NOT the velocity she would have had at her maximum height without
friction, which would have been zero)?

iv) How much thermal energy will have been generated by the time the skater has
come to a complete stop?