Sydney Sun

Kappa

3/16/08

Work Section

In solving the unit problem, there were a lot of equations that

were involved in the process. But, the thing is the main equation that

we used was our final equation which is cos(9w)50=-

240+15(w+Ö57+15(9w)/16. This equation is a culmination of other

equations. In that equation, 50 is the radius, W is wheel time, the 9 is

degrees per second, the 15 is the rate of the pool, and the -240 is the

starting point of the pool. The final equation is made up of the

equation for height, falling time, and cosine.

The first equation that I had figured out/used is the equation for

falling time. I had gotten this equation from our very first class work.

The equation is t=Öh/16. In this equation “t” stands for time, which is

the thing that I was looking for. The “h” stands for height, which the

distance that the object is from the ground. The 16 is half of the rate

that and object falls at—32— everything falls at the same rate against

gravity, and that rate is 16. The process that I took find this equation

was:

Steps

1) h-16t^2=0 2) 16t^2/16=-h/16 3) t^2=-h/16 4) Öt^2=-h/16 5)

 Cosine
50 Ft
cart Sine65 ft

t=Öh/16

The second equation that I had found was the equation for

height, which, is h(t)=65+50sin(9t). Once again “h” is height, “t” is

time, and 9 is the degrees per second. The 65 represents 65ft, which

is the center of the Ferris wheel to the ground, and the 50 represents

the radius of the Ferris Wheel. Those 2 numbers were given to us.

Also, in the unit problem, we used sine and cosine because they are 2

trigonometry functions that would help us find the triangle that will be

created between the ground, the height and where Andre will be. Also,

Cosine gives me the X position(horizontal) and Sine will gives me the Y

position (vertical).
Also, Trigonometry is the study of how the sides and angles of a

triangle are related to each other. So, one would assume that Trig only

has to do with triangles, but trig also has to do with circles because, If

the length of the hypotenuse(longest side of a triangle) is exactly one

unit, we call the circle that the end of the hypotenuse draws, a unit

circle.

Unlike my original plan, I had to reconstruct the final equation. I

tried to enter it into the calculator as it was, but it didn’t work. Later

on I figured out that I had to change the equation according to PEMDAS

because that is how the calculator will read it. That was a step that I

had to my original plan, or I wouldn’t have been able to solve the Unit

Problem. So, I had to figure out where each parenthesis will be and

everything. I went from this equation cos(9w)50=-

240+15(w+Ö57+15(9w)/16 to (Ö( sin(9w)50+57)/16+x), I entered the

new equation as Y1 in the graphing calculator and I entered cos(15+-

240) as my second line. After I just graphed it and the calculator found

the point of intersection, which was 12.282855 for X and -17.54771

for Y.