Tug-of-War Project

James Myers & Chris Hoffman

Questions

1. Will fat people or skinny people win in tug-of-war?

2. Is tug of war affected if it is played in water? 

3. If there was no gravity what would happen in the game of tug-or-war?

4. If the ground on one side was made out of ice and the other side was made out of solid ground, how would it affect the game and who would win?

5. If the texture of the rope was different how would it affect the game?

Focus Question

If the ground on one side was made out of ice and the other side was made out of solid ground, how would it affect the game and who would win?

 

Hypothesis

         We feel that if one side of the ground is made out of ice and the other side is made out of solid ground, the team that is on the ground made out ice will lose because they will have less friction to help them pull against the other team. This is because the ice ground is slick compared to the solid ground.

Explore and Investigate

We researched this question on the internet and ever site said that the team on the ice will lose because they do have less friction than the other team. We also went to the ice skating rink on Westminster and walked on the ice with our shoes, and found out that it is very slick and difficult to walk let alone play tug-of-war on ice. 

Here you can see that the force of both sides is the same, yet the side on the ice is losing because they have less ground friction as you can see by the smaller arrow.

Answer

We think that the team on the ice will lose becuase they have less friction. This is because, like Newtons First Law states that something in motion will stay in motion, the team on ice will continue to slide on the ice because they wont be able to stop their motion of being pulled by the other team.  The only thing that would stop thier motion would be an obstacle or a change in friction from the slick surface to surface that has much more friction.

Reflect

a) James Myers

b) I learned that things in real life all relate to Newtons laws and can be put to the test to find out if they work or not.  Also that tug of war is much more than two teams pulling against each other, yet has much to do with physics and the laws by which we cant control.

c) I wrote and made the whole blog.

d)Yes because our group had to do a lot of research becuase we do not have ice all over the place in huntington beach.