Swingin' PhysicsCharlie LynchAward: Top 100
School: trinity school On Coney Island's historic Luna Park, there is an attraction called the Brooklyn Flyer, that displays an example of circular motion. I drew a vector addition diagram for a rider and learned that the swing angle is dependent on the speed of motion and the radius of the circle. The angle is calculated using the inverse tangent of the ratio between the centripetal force, (mv^2/r) and the force of gravity (m x 9.8 m/s^2). Since mass cancels out when applying this, this means that no matter what the mass of a passenger is, the swing will move each seat, loaded or not, at the same angle. Finally, the riders experience an increased number of G's than they normally feel. This is because the riders have more normal force acted upon them by the seat than by Earth's gravitational pull, due to the seats stopping riders from linear motion by holding them in place. 
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