The Speed App on the Paddleboard
1The summer camp at Pine Hollow Lake teaches stand-up paddleboarding to middle schoolers. On science afternoon, instructor Mr. Ronan Iwasaki strapped a waterproof phone with a speed app to the front of his board. The app recorded the board's speed. It also used the total mass of the board, rider and gear, 80 kg, to show their kinetic energy in joules. Camper Delfina Kask kept the log from the dock while the rest of her group watched and called out what they saw.
2Mr. Iwasaki started from a standstill and paddled hard for 8 strokes. Then he lifted his paddle out of the water and glided across open water. Next he glided into a patch of lily pads. The pads bent and slid aside as the board pushed through, and they kept rocking for a few seconds after he passed. As he drifted out of the patch, a gust of wind blew from behind him while he held his paddle up out of the water.
3Last, he glided slowly into the camp's floating swim platform, which has a mass of 160 kg, a rubber bumper along its edge and a loose rope tying it to an anchor. When the board hit the bumper, the board stopped. The bumper squashed in and sprang back, the campers heard a dull thud and small waves spread out from the platform. The platform drifted away at about 0.5 m/s until its rope pulled tight. Delfina used the app's numbers to make an energy inventory of the bump (the bar graph in Part 2).