Fnet = ma

11 June 2013Yasyf M & Braden J, Privett ‘13

After many hours, weeks and months of ineffable preparation for the AP Physics exam, the students of the venerable Mr. Bruce Tate’s class felt the need to blow off some steam. Instead of mere steam, the mighty warriors of special relativity and simple harmonic motion let loose a cacophony of black-powder-fuelled rockets, and all the expected accompanying exhaust a Grade 12 student could ask for. Minor mishaps and accidental additions aside (cough, cough, James C) the rockets were a not-so-smashing success (all of them survived), and the students experienced, for perhaps the first time, the frustrations of building, by hand, things that could easily have been assembled in a factory by machines. When all was said and done, it was an accelerating afternoon of in-depth analysis on Newton’s laws of motion, especially those pertaining to kinematics. The outcome of the afternoon? Brentwood College School’s AP Physics classes of 2013 can say, indubitably, that g= 9.80665, t=1, and recovery wadding is like toilet paper: you can never have enough. It may have been tough work, but as our fearless leader always says: “After all, it’s only rocket science!” Yasyf M & Braden J, Privett ‘13

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