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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

"The Fastest Ice on Earth" - Conservation of Momentum in Short Track Speed Skating

On February 12, 2010, the stunning opening ceremonies to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics were held at BC Place in British Columbia. This ceremony opened the 21st Olympic Winter Games in which the USA was awarded over 37 medals and Canada got its first gold on home land (over 14 golds, leading the gold count for the Olympics). For me, one of the most exciting sports to watch and one that I knew little about was Short Track Speed Skating. These athletes need to have speed, agility, athleticism, and aggression in order to excel in the races. Not only is Short Track exciting to watch, but it is also filled with physics, like all of the other sports in the winter Olympics.

Below is a link to and an embedded "Prezi" that gives a little history of Short Track, describes its rules, equipment, winners, and illustrates how the Conservation of Momentum and the Conservation of Energy apply to the sport that moves at a lightning speed:



I could not have done this project without my partner Cyrus. Thanks so much for your help and collaboration. It was such an enjoyable experience. Here is his Blog: "A Phlight Through Physics"

4 comments:

  1. wow... what an OUTSTANDING project! to start off with I love the introduction to the project that you gave. It was detailed but precise and said exactly what it needed to. The layout of the Prezi is incredible. How you put the information around the ice track was clever and creative. The only thing for next time would be to slightly shorten the length of some of the paragraphs of information. I seemed to lose interest at points because it seemed to drag on a bit. Don't get me wrong the detail was great but cutting it down a little more might solve that problem. A brilliant project you should be very proud of!

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  2. Chris you did such an amazing job with this project. I love how you incorporated the track into your project in such a creative way. Also all of the pictures/video you found were great really adding to the project and what you were teaching about. You did a fabulous job explaining how speed skating is connected to physics, really stating everything we have learned clearly. I loved how you gave several examples of physics in speed skating with the different collision examples.Also the history was very interesting including the first winners was a very good idea and how you included the changes in the sports over the years.

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  3. Great, great job! It is very impressive and I second the comments of Pippa and Emily!
    Please be sure to embed the Prezi in your blog posting.

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  4. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read and comment on my project. I greatly appreciate the effort. I will agree that sometimes it could get a bit wordy, and I think I could possibly thin it down some in a few places. Again, thank you for the kind words and complements.

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