Blogpost #4

First of all, I'm really sorry this picture didn't come out very nice. Actually, it's really bad because you have to strain you eyes to see what I'm talking about, but bear with me, please. So I was looking out my dorm room window because I heard this really annoying sound. Turns out some guy had scaled the palm tree outside my window and was chopping down the fronds. This was really weird because I didn't see a ladder or anything. Anyway, I figured it would be possible for me to calculate the velocity of a falling frond just before it hit the ground (if I had the initial velocity). I could use the formula Vf=Vi+at. The man was cutting the fronds down with a machete, so their initial free-fall velocity was probably above 0 m/s (if downwards was indicated as the positive direction). The acceleration would be gravity, or 9.8 m/s2. Then I could time the number of seconds it took the frond to fall. After plugging in the numbers, I would be able to calculate its final velocity. *Note that the in the picture, you can basically just see the pile of palm fronds on the ground.