James (Jim) Frankenfield - Academic Library - Physics Videos
Video #1 - Physics - Projectile Motion
I have a few videos on youtube
. If you find them helpful please like the video and the channel and it will encourage me to make more. You can also suggest or request a topic via my contact page. I will consider requests but at the moment cannot make too many videos too quickly.
Video #1 - Physics - Projectile Motion
This video covers simple projectile motion (i.e. the projectile starts and ends at the same height). The problem is first solved with the simple range equation. It is then solved with the vector equations of motion for kinematics, which can be used for essentially all kinematics problems. I address the benefits and flexibility of using the kinematics equations and mention a rocket problem but do not solve that. There is a Desmos projectile page which is built in (not created by me).
The motivation for the video came partly from tutoring A-Level physics, which simply used the range equation, and also from a help group on Facebook where somebody had the rocket problem discussed in the video. In the help group we solved the rocket version, or discussed the steps for it.
The problem came up in the A-Level course as the "William Tell" problem in which William Tell needs to fire the arrow at the correct angle to hit the apple on his sons head. In an attempt at some dark humor I also call it the William Burroughs problem, although in his case it was a bullet and not an arrow. A bullet could be assumed to travel in a straight line at short ranges. If you are unfamiliar with William Tell or with William Burroughs incident in Mexico City I'll leave it to you to Google those bits of history.
This was the first video I ever made so it's a bit rough but did not turn out too bad. While I was discussing the physics I was actually thinking much more about the unreliable Trust Webcam I had at the time. Since then I have purchased a new webcam which is much better and more reliable, and I have gained some experience at the basics of making a video. I also did not have the cam parameters set correctly so there is black space on each side - sorry about that! But the content is sound!