Swinging Pendulum
This activity demonstrates how potential energy (PE) can be converted to kinetic energy (KE) and back again. Given a pendulum height, students calculate and predict how fast the pendulum will swing by understanding conservation of energy and using the equations for PE and KE. The equations are justified as students experimentally measure the speed of the pendulum and compare theory with reality.
Students examine swinging pendulums and their conservation of energy.Copyright 2011 Ruryk, Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oscillating_pendulum.gif
Mechanical engineers design a wide range of consumer and industry devices—transportation vehicles, home appliances, computer hardware, factory equipment—that use mechanical motion. The design of equipment for demolition purposes is another example. Like the movement of a pendulum, when an enormous wrecking ball is held at a height, it possesses potential energy, and as it falls, its potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. As the wrecking ball makes contact with the structure to be destroyed, it transfers that energy to take down the structure.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain the concepts of potential and kinetic energy.
- Use the concepts of kinetic energy, potential energy and conservation of energy to perform an experiment to determine an object's velocity.
- Describe how the concepts of conservation of energy, kinetic energy and potential energy are used extensively in engineering design.