Hovercraft Blog Post

Hovercraft Blog

In class Wednesday we conducted a brief experiment in where we rode hovercrafts. The hovercraft was made up of a wooden shield like piece wrapped in garbage bags tucked in duct tape, and controlled by a leaf blowing causing it to hover. Riding the hover craft felt weird because, the craft viciously vibrated and showed no sign of stoppage.  Most people would expect the hover craft to eventually slow down, however contrary to the common belief because there is no force acting to stop the hover craft it could potentially move forever. With other push based rides such as sledding, skateboarding and roller skating there is no possibility of you moving on forever because you can't reach an equilibrium due to friction. The hover craft taught me that when at equilibrium one can continuously move unless interrupted. When there is no net force it can still be moving it is just maintaining constant velocity. Inertia is just the amount of force to get something to change states of motion. For example Winston took more force to move and stop than Caroline, meaning Winston has more inertia. Accelerating is dependent on the amount of force acting upon an object. Acceleration creates the speed to start and stop in a zero net force situation. Constant velocity is achieved while wondrously hovering from point a to b. In this frame you have no forces acting on or against you.