PHY 101 Project Presentation Guidelines

Each group presentation should be no longer than 5 minutes. To facilitate this time constraint, try to focus on the following points in your presentation:

1) What is the topic your group chose to study?

2) What question(s) you chose to attempt to answer (based on your general topic above)?

3) What approach did you take to address your question(s)?

4) What were your results and conclusions?

5) Presentation of your learning activity (demonstration)

6) Summary of project:


PHY 101 Project Presentations (Example Responses)

Below each question is an example presentation response.

1) What is the topic your group chose to study?

e.g. Our group chose to study the application of physics concepts to the game of golf

2) What question(s) you chose to attempt to answer (based on your general topic above)?

e.g. Our group posed the following question: Do modern golf clubs really allow players to hit the ball better than older, more traditional, golf clubs?

3) What approach did you take to address your question(s)?

e.g. To address this question, we focused on a comparison, between a new and older golf clubs (the driver was our club of choice), of 3 performance properties:

a) the size of contact surface between

b) the size of “sweet spot”

c) the rotational inertia

4) What were your results and conclusions?

e.g. To compare contact surface area, we measured various widths of each club and estimated the surface area of the club face ® Result: the newer club had a significantly larger surface area compared to the older club

e.g. To compare sweet spots, we secured each club and systematically dropped a golf ball (from the same fixed height) over the club face and determined the region where the bounce height was at least 80% of its maximum value ® Results: A) the newer club had a significantly larger “sweet spot” compared to the older club B) It should be noted that at the “sweet spot” the older club produced a 10% greater bounce height than the new club

e.g. To compare rotational inertias, we attached the grip end of each each club to a rotating fulcrum and measured the “period” of the swing of each club for various raised heights ® Result: the newer club had a significantly faster swing (shorter period by roughly 20%) compared to the older club indicating that had a lower rotational inertia

5) Presentation of your learning activity (demonstration)

e.g. N/A

6) Summary of project:

e.g. Based on our experiments, the newer club indeed has the capacity for more consistent performance than the older club but the older club may possibly allow for greater impact force when contact is made directly with its sweet spot.