Ai Pioppi

Prerequisite: physics, algebra 2/geometry

The Bicycle of Death. I bet it sounds more menacing in Italian. It is one of the many human-powered rides at Ai Pioppi.

This ride just about sums up my second quarter of AP Physics but I am not supposed to go into that, am I? The Blue Giraffe is protesting now. But I must comment on how much energy goes to friction and moving the hardware itself! While it is tough work for two men, two children would be dealing with even greater percentages of their body masses. It is almost a fancy workout equipment.

But then that is the power of machines, pedalling a greater arc length for moving a shorter arc length along the track.

I see there is also an extension from the carriage, through the center of the circle, to the other side. It may contribute as a counter mass of the carriage to facilitate riding towards the top, and as an inertial mass to uhh, keep people hanging up there.

F = Ia here refers to the weight of this counter mass (the acceleration should have been called g tangent).

I have not quite labelled everything thoroughly, missing a couple tangent subscripts here and there, but whatever. And I put zero at the top. And I should be using degrees in physics. Meh. Point is, gravity does some of the work.

It is also interesting to note the carriage's gradual accumulation of height. This ride makes a visual for the net accumulation of energy, of human input and friction output. And each time the carriage passes through ground level, it does so at a higher speed.

The place has come a long way from welding seesaws and roundabouts for little kids..