Rotational Dyanamics

This is a struggle. 

I would have never thought that this concept would be so hard to understand. I love science, especially physics. so I assumed this would come easy to me. I've talked to two science teachers, Ryan and MacMinn, and both started writing formulas on the SMARTboard that, to me, looked like hieroglyphics.

I've been surfing YouTube and have found a some videos explaining torque and angular momentum, two huge parts of rotational dynamics. These videos are extremely helpful but I still need some guidance. Later today, I am going to try to get switched out of my I/E and head into the 'Physics Support' one instead. MacMinn told me he'd help me and I feel as if he would be a wonderful source for my investigation.

While talking to my Dad about the project and telling him about how hard the concept of rotational dynamics was, he made a good point. He told me that spinning is spinning so think of other things that spin and research the technique how to do that. BAM a whirling figure skater comes bashing into my brain.

What I have found out about spinning from figure skating:

• If your body is not balanced in the air you will travel off center causing what is called corking* in snowboarding. To address this they say it has nothing to do with the placement of your arms, it has to do with a bending of shoulders. One shoulder should be slightly bent forward while the other is bent slightly backward. This will keep your body in a balanced state and maximize your revolutions.
• The more center the object rotation is the faster it should spin. That is the reason the skaters hold their arms close to speed up and reach them out to slow down at the end of their spin. This all has to do with the conservation of momentum. 

"Well, if a figure skater starts their spin with their arms spread wide, they have a large moment of inertia.  When the skater tucks their arms to their chest, the moment of inertia decreases.  Conservation of angular momentum tells us this – if the moment of inertia gets smaller, the object's angular velocity is going to be faster." (Spangler)

*Corking is when the snowboarder starts to spin vertically instead of horizontally. This is applied in very extreme tricks.

I will apply this to my technique by opening my shoulder the way that is explained by the skater and also condense myself as much as possible to maximize my angular velocity.

Putting the science into a more familiar idea really helps me understand the concept. I'll probably end up trying this in the classroom as well.

Technical Figure Skating: http://web.dit.upm.es/~jantonio/personal/patinaje/
Steve Spangler Experiment: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/ice-skating-spin