Vector Treasure Hunt: Target Health and Beauty Department Purpose: Create a series of directions that lead to a specific

object Follow directions to locate a specific object Generate a scale map to obtain magnitude and direction (R and Theta) Generate a free-body diagram to obtain R and Theta Procedure: Materials: fifteen index cards, meter stick 1. Decide on a starting and ending location 2. Obtain fifteen cards on which to record directions 3. On the cards, write directions starting from your starting point. Each direction card must have a direction [N, S, E, or W] and a distance. You must write exactly fifteen directions to find the treasure. If you do not have ammeter stick, you can estimate using your walking stride.

Let 1 unit = 3 meters The sum of all the x axis direction vectors are equivalent to (6 6.4 6 + 10 + 4 2 + 4 14) = -4.4 units The sum of all y axis direction vectors is equivalent to (10 2.4 8 + 4 - 8 + 6 + 10) = 11.6 units 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Magnitude 10 units 6 units 2.4 units 6.4 units 8 units 6 units 4 units 10 units 4 units 8 units 2 units 6 units 4 units Direction N E S W S W N E E S W N E + + _ + + + _ _ _ _ Y-axis + X-axis + Angle 90 0 270 180 270 180 90 0 0 270 180 90 0

14 15

10 units 14 units

N W

+ _

90 180

North Treature Place (x=-3.5, y=13)

14

6 2.4 Y-Axis 6.4 10

10 10 8 4 West 6 Starting Point

4 4 8 X-Axis 2

Eas

South

Questions: 1. Is the path described by the cards you wrote the same length or longer than the straight-line path to the object? Can your cards be used to determine the straight-line path? Explain. The path described by the cards I wrote is longer than the straight-line path to the object this is because when you actually use the vectors and directions provided by the 15 notecards, the total distance is much farther compared to the straight-lined path. The straight-line path is just a resultant of all of the vectors added together taking direction into account. The cards describe the DISTANCE, which is a SCALAR, without having to add all the directions and cancel opposite directions out. The resultant (straight-line path) is DISPLACEMENT, which is a VECTOR. 2. Would another person be able to find your treasure using your directions cards if your cards were placed out of order? Explain your answer. Yes. Because R= r1+r2+r3+..+rn=r2+r1+r3+.+rn. (Rx=rx1+rx3+rx2=rx3+rx2+rx1, Ry=ry1+ry2+ry3=ry3+ry2+ry1) 3. Does the map you drew accurately reflect the path you took to find the object? If not, explain the difference. No, the map does not 100% accurately reflect the path I took to find the object using the x-y coordinate system already takes directions N, S, E, and W into account give theor. Its just implied that your starting point is at the origin. 4. Based on this exercise, describe the most efficient method of using the set of direction cards to locate the object. Would this work for any set of directions? Explain why or why not? R=rx+ry (adding all x-axis component displacements, and adding all y axis component displacements ) is the magnitude of the R, find arctangent which is the direction of the R. People just need walk this R. 5. Compare R the two methods by finding the percentage error using trig (free body) method and the theoretical value. 6. Compare theta by the two methods by finding the percentage error using trig 7. How does the DISPLACEMENT of the trip compare to the DISTANCE traveled? The displacement is much shorter than the distance actually traveled. This is because displacement takes direction into account and certain vectors will cancel each others values out at some point, only giving you the resultant. The direction will just be the addition of every vector together, not actually taking direction into account when added together. The total distance would be (10 + 6 + 2.4 + 6.4 + 8 + 6 + 4 + 10 + 4 +8 +2 +6 + 4 + 10 +14) = 100.8 units. But the resultant is only 27.9 units 9.1 Degrees W of N. 8. Under what conditions would the displacement of the trip be zero? This would only be the case if all values cancel each other out and if your destination is the same place where you started. Conclusion From this lab, one can conclude that there is only one way to actually follow a set of directions, while there are a myriad of ways of actually going about directions with obtaining the same magnitude. It can be inferred that when trying to find a specific destination, you MUST follow the directions in order. Our final destination in this lab was the health and beauty department in Target.