Today the year 8 classes used the Slomo app on the iPads to help measure how high our smiley pop-up toys jumped.
The idea was to see how much elastic potential energy they had in their springs.
And the flight captured using the iPad's camera on the Slomo app.
The flight could then be reviewed in slow motion, even frame by frame, to see exactly how high the toy flew.
This gave us a very accurate figure. Then the mass was taken and converted into newtons
The energy can then be calculated by newtons x metres (although this does not allow for losses from air resistance or the noise it makes.)
Interestingly Josh discovered that by putting a primed toy on the electronic balance the reading would increase by about 50% when the toy jumped. He couldn't see this without Slomo-ing the screen as the increased was only shown briefly.
This could be one you could try at home by jumping on the bathroom scales! Do let me know your results if you have a go.
