- #1
alexcroteau
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Hello, I am a first year science teacher doing my best with teaching physics for the first time (my degree is chemistry but I am in a very small school).
I am teaching projectile motion. I was creating a worksheet and trying to solve a problem I made up when I realized something wasn't working out.
I made a problem where an object is launched with a known initial velocity, a known time of flight, and a known distance to the target (target is at same height as launch). I wanted students to find the angle of launch.
When I started to solve I used Vox = (Xf-Xo)/t to find the x component of the initial velocity, then I can simply solve for the angle using trigonometry. All of this checks out and works fine.
However, I wanted to see if I got the same angle if I solved for the y component instead of the x component. I used (yf-yo) = Voy*t + 1/2at^2
The problem is that the y component I get from solving this is always half of the y component I got from trigonometry using the x component I solved for earlier. Thus my angle is also wrong. This doesn't make sense to me. Hopefully someone can help.
Sorry this was a bit wordy. I can add values if it would help.
I am teaching projectile motion. I was creating a worksheet and trying to solve a problem I made up when I realized something wasn't working out.
I made a problem where an object is launched with a known initial velocity, a known time of flight, and a known distance to the target (target is at same height as launch). I wanted students to find the angle of launch.
When I started to solve I used Vox = (Xf-Xo)/t to find the x component of the initial velocity, then I can simply solve for the angle using trigonometry. All of this checks out and works fine.
However, I wanted to see if I got the same angle if I solved for the y component instead of the x component. I used (yf-yo) = Voy*t + 1/2at^2
The problem is that the y component I get from solving this is always half of the y component I got from trigonometry using the x component I solved for earlier. Thus my angle is also wrong. This doesn't make sense to me. Hopefully someone can help.
Sorry this was a bit wordy. I can add values if it would help.