Tag Archives: acceleration

Simple accelerometer and circular motion

I’ve just started teaching circular motion to my Year 12s. There are some obvious demonstrations you can do when teaching this topic, such as spinning a bucket of water around your head, but I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I’ve only just discovered the floating cork accelerometer which can be used to illustrate a key idea for this topic. Watch the video to see what I mean.

Massive thank you to my colleague Ronan McDonald for making the big accelerometer and volunteering to get dizzy.

[Edit 18/6/2013 – this post inspired a lively discussion at the Institute of Physics PTNC mailing list for physics teachers, which is a hidden gem of a community and a list every teacher of physics should at least be aware of. Sign up via the web interface. Thanks to everyone who cross-posted their comments here.

Joe Rowling had a nice blog post a few days before this, too – well worth a look if circular motion is your thing.

—JJS.]