Name: Bryan Leonor

Institution: University of San Diego

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Context:

You have decided to go on a backpacking trip with, yet have never gone backpacking before. Without knowing how to pack your backpack, you stuff your gear into a backpacking bag and go on your backpacking trip. As you attempt your journey, your pack weighs you down and is very unstable. You consider solutions to fix this so you ask your experienced outdoor friends who they say that most of the weight should reside on the hips. Considering your knowledge of statics you try to decide to move around the contents of your bag to place the weight on your hips. The weights of the objects and placements are tent poles which are placed on the outside of the backpack in the triangle and smaller rectangle region weighing around 5 pounds. The food and snacks placed in the semicircle weighing around 4 pounds. The sleeping bag weighs 2 pounds. The pots and kitchen utensils weigh 5 pounds. Lastly the water bag weighs 11 pounds.

Problem:

Considering you have to place the sleeping bag, pots and kitchen utensils, and a water bag in regions A, B, or C, what is the most optimal placement of these items in your bag so that the bag’s center of gravity will rest comfortably on your hips? What is the center of gravity for this circumstance?

Make assumptions as necessary.

The pack itself is represented by the picture and measurements (not drawn to scale) :

Reflections:

  1. If you had to create a bag which would be perfectly centered on the hips what could you do?
  2. Do you think having the heaviest objects at the bottom to always be the best? When would it not be the best placement?
  3. Does the current placement of objects make sense or seem practical?