Monday, February 09, 2009

When You Don't Know How To Solve A Projectile Motion Problem...


...flatter the teacher with a cool castle and impressive weaponry, and throw in a cetacean for good measure.

Yes, I received permission from my student to post this here.

11 comments:

gbradley said...

That looks like a Peter Nguyen answer.

The last paragraph of the Walt Whitman essay is my favorite.

Peter


http://randomcuriosity.freetzi.com/peter.html

Anonymous said...

Was the problem was something like: "A projectile is launched 100 ft from the ground, with an initial direction parallel to the ground. How far in the horizontal direction does the projectile travel (assuming a 1G environment and a vacuum)?"

-Mark Roulo

Darren said...

Muzzle velocity of 250 feet per second, and earthbound Newtonian physics were assumed.

And while I had never before heard of Peter Nguyen, I admit the man's work entertained me tonight!

Anonymous said...

That is a terrific whale :) Student is an artist! So did they have to figure out where the target was standing or were they told how far away the target was, and the muzzle velocity, and asked to find the angle at which they would have to fire? Because maybe the whale wasn't in the way after all ...

Darren said...

The problem was to determine how far from the castle the enemy was standing.

And the picture *clearly* shows the whale is in the way :-)

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of a website - www.zerooutoffive.com - devoted to student work. Peter Nguyen is a "regular" contributor. Check it out.

Darren said...

After receiving permission from my student to do so, I also sent the picture to zerooutoffive.

Babbie said...

Reminds me that my daughter told me of drawing a picture of the sailboat mentioned in the last problem on her AP Calculus exam in complete acknowledgement that she didn't know how to solve it.

Anonymous said...

(Rolls on ground laughing)

That's absolutely brilliant! Okay, not in math...but maybe this kid has a bright future in art or history. :)

Sorry, I know I'm new here, but I'm a biology graduate from New Zealand. I'm going to be taking a one-year course to become a science teacher, and I've been reading your blog for a bit. My political views are also pretty out of line with most teachers. :)

Anonymous said...

I remember getting this right a few years back. :) This is more impressive, though.
Was it extra-credit?

Anonymous said...

I got this question right a few years ago :)

Also, reminds me of Picture 7 on this page:
http://quazen.com/kids-and-teens/school-time/funny-exam-answers/