Advanced Physics Independent Study

The Project

In Honors Advanced Physics, we learned most of the fundamental concepts of Newtonian Mechanics. The content we learned in class corresponds very closely to that on the AP Physics - Mechanics exam, but a few of the topics on that exam were not covered in class. I wanted to supplement my knowledge of physics by teaching myself all the rest of the concepts that students in an AP Physics - Mechanics class would learn in a normal year, and I also chose to study one additional topic that even AP Physics - Mechanics students do not learn in their class.

In our class, we studied kinematics, force, work, energy, and linear momentum with regard to non-rotational particle-like objects, and the kinematics, torque, inertia, work, and energy of solid objects rotating about fixed axes. So, I started my independent study by picking off where we left off in class, and finishing our unit on rotating bodies by studying angular momentum.

From there, I moved on to two topics taught in AP Physics - Mechanics that we had not yet covered: orbital dynamics and simple harmonic oscillators. I also covered one other unit not taught in Honors Advanced Physics or in a generic AP Physics - Mechanics class: fluid dynamics.

Project Presentation

RadmanZ.mp4

I gave a presentation on several of the core topics I had learned in my independent study to my Honors Advanced Physics class to conclude my project. Above is the recording of my live presentation, and below are the slides I used in the presentation.

Presentation Slides

Q4 Intensive Physics Project Presentation.pptx

All photo credit goes to David Halliday et al, Fundamentals of Physics (8th edition, part 1).

In this screenshot, I am attempting to raise a spacecraft's orbit and then "land" it on the Moon (the sim will stop if the spacecraft collides with either the Moon or Earth) using as little "fuel" units as possible (the fuel units are arbitrary).

Fuel units are displayed on a counter in the bottom left of the render window, and the color of the line traced out by the spaceship also changes as fuel is used. Try to beat my record!

Orbital Dynamics Simulator

During my studies of orbital dynamics, I decided to code an orbital dynamics simulator using UC Berkeley's Snap! online block-based coding utility to visualize some of the concepts I learned in this unit.

I was able to use the simulator to confirm the predictions I had made and answers I had obtained from using orbital dynamics equations to solve questions concerning spacecraft navigation, changing orbits, etc.

The sim is interactive; users can pilot their ship with the arrow keys and use the H and C keys respectively to change piloting modes. Instructions on accessing the simulator can be found in the slides attached above. Please do not modify the sim's source code or save any changes to the sim (upon leaving the website, click "leave without saving changes"). Use the green flag button to start / restart the sim.

Disclaimer: the sim does have one bug; the orbital radii of all the objects gradually increase due to how the runtime / refresh rate of the sim works. Also, this sim does not use relativistic mechanics, so it is not accurate in that regard either.

I hope you enjoy using the simulator, and thank you for your interest in my project!