Thursday, February 28, 2008

ooh, jealousy

My students are doing a project where they pose a question and try to answer it using physics. Most of them picked Mythbusters-type questions like "can dropping a penny off of a skyscraper really kill someone?" or "how many helium balloons do you need to lift yourself off the ground." One kid, however, decided to test the horsepower of different cars, and see how closely it matches the power output on a closed course. Which means that he has access to multiple cars and a track on which to drive.

So he turned in his preliminary data tables last week, which included the tested horsepower of six different cars, including:

Lexus

Corvette

Aston Martin

and another car I've never even heard of, but which I was informed is worth $1.5 million. It's a good thing he's such a nice kid.

7 comments:

Graytoppop said...

So what are the results of the test???

Ashley Erin said...

he better givey you a nice christmas gift.

MOM THE BOMB said...

It's a good thing you're such a good teacher. He had a great excuse to ask his dad to borrow the "cars."

Bexie Funk said...

holy crap

poodle said...

that's exactly what i said, bex.

Charlo said...

Brett said to be thaaaaaaat much it would have to be a collectors car or a race car.... or a limited addition hand built one. Who knows.

but one day, his dad will by you a Bentley, and your students will egg it (for velocity tests).

BRANDON said...

so did the student with the penny question ever figure out the terminal velocity of a penny?