Catapults Day 2

We spent time today calculating the x intercepts and the vertex for our catapult trajectories.

We made graphs and made predictions about where to place the catapult if we were going to aim for a target on the floor, or if we were aiming for a target on a chair.

One group even tackled the situation where we’re catapulting a pompom onto an angled surface.

By using their understanding of slopes and angles and trigonometry they used the tan ratio to solve their problem, and then it continues to be a quadratic problem which we’re getting really good at solving.

Our individual portion of the culminating task is coming up next week, where we will do similar analysis using a new set of data.