Blog 6: A Simple Compromise

My dad got particularly excited about this blog as I finally asked him for an idea.  He quickly thought of ideas that were, although easy to do, way too complicated for me to comprehend.  That still did not stop him from shooting down my more simple and "fun" idea.  My idea was to grab the small step ladder we have in the kitchen, put a stuffed animal or something on one of the blades, and steadily increase the speed of the fan.  But, with more concern for the ceiling fan than the entertainment factor of doing a physics blog, my dad came up with a satisfiable compromise.  In this set up, my dad screwed a paper plate on to one of his power drills.  I placed a nickle on the platem started the drill slowly then started to turn up the speed.  Soon after increasing the speed, the nickle flew off the plate.  I now know that because the nickel's centripetal force, in this case it's friction, was not strong enough to keep it in it's circular path, it flew away from the center of the rotation on a tangent.

Angled Ramp (turn before tunnel on Likelike Hwy)