AP Physics teacher Kristin Gonzales-Vega stood on the 50 yard line staring at the water balloons being launched at her. The Physics B students were presenting their six weeks project – balloon catapults.
Students had to build water balloon launchers and use two-dimensional kinematics to calculate how far the balloons should go when launched at certain angles.
“They could build the launchers from whatever and however they wanted as long as they were safe,” Gonzales-Vega said. “I tried not to tell them much so they get creative. I love seeing new ideas they come up with every year.”
Students had to calculate the position and how far their water balloon would go before making their launcher.
“The highest grade came from doing the projectile calculations to find height and velocity of the water balloon and then hitting me on the 50 yard line of the football field,” Gonzales-Vega said.
in the years that students have participated in the water balloon project, not a single launcher has hit Gonzales-Vega.
“This year, I had one that bounced and broke at my feet and one that hit just to the left of me and got the bottom of my dress a tad wet,” Gonzales-Vega said. “I’ve never been directly hit in the four years I’ve done the project.”
Students said they enjoyed working on the project and building complex machines for a chance to hit their physics teacher with a water balloon.
“Doing the project, I got a better understanding of the material we were learning in that unit and how it was applied to the real world,” Junior Shraddha Bista said.
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