Blog 7: Centripetal Force

I remember playing a racing game in Jungle Fun at Ala Moana and after the most recent chapter, I realized that it had to do with physics! In the game, you would be driving a Ferrari, trying to go as fast as possible and to beat whoever you are racing, in my case it was Troy. Of course I destroyed Troy in the game because I'm super fast, but only now I realized that the game had some principles of physics in it. In the game, there were many sharp, round turns. These turns were sharp because the radius of the circular motion was relatively small. When making the turn, I would have to slow down or else I would go off the road and flip over. This is where I realized that there is physics. We have to slow down in order to reduce the velocity of our Ferrari because the radius of the circular motion was so small. Because the radius was so small, the centripetal force that was required to keep the Ferrari moving in the tight circular motion was very high. In order to keep the centripetal force requirement low enough for the centripetal force, friction, to keep the Ferrari moving in the circular motion. When the velocity was too high, the centripetal force of friction was not enough to keep the Ferrari moving in a circular motion because a higher velocity increases the requirment of the centripetal force. Because the velocity was too high, the car would either go off the road and crash into the wall, or flip over entirely.http://img.slidetoplay.com/screenshots/Ferrari_GT_007.PNG