Snowball Drop

Winter Break Blog

My original idea for this blog was to record myself skiing, but after I injured my knee I wasn't left with many options that involved a lot of physical activity. As an alternative I decided to record my friend dropping a snowball off my deck and solve 

I found that the snowball took approximately 1.3 seconds to fall from a 10 ft platform. 

Next, it was time to evaluate what I knew:

Vi          -         0

Vf         -         ?

△y        -     3.05 m 

a         -        -9.8

t          -        1.3 s

I used the information gathered to solve for velocity:

△y  =  Vft  - 1/2at^2

3.05  =  Vf (1.3)  -  1/2 (9.8)(1.3)^2

11.331  =  Vf (1.3)

Vf  = 8.71 m/s

In the end i found that the final velocity of the snowball was 8.71 m/s.