Acceleration day five arc of a ball
Early arrival at the classroom allowed the presetting of the board with 80 cm wide panels. Six racquetballs were pre-placed on the board. Six groups work side-by-side on the boards attempting to trace the arc of their ball. After tracing the ball paths on the board, the coordinates of the x-intercepts and the y-intercept are added to the diagram. Then the students are asked to find the equation that puts a line (curve) through those three points. Two groups used the automatic quadratic regression. One group obtained a lead coefficient of -4/41 for a parabola with x-intercepts at (-23,0) and (23,0) with a y-intercept at (0,52). They said they used the quadratic formula to find that ratio, but could not explain how they obtained that fraction. The fraction works rather well. -4/41 is 0.09756 while the fully correct fraction is -52/529 or 0.09830. The activity engages the students. This term, with only a single laboratory section of physical scienc...