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The Virtual Textbook
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These resources have been reviewed and selected by STEM Learning’s team of education specialists for factual accuracy and relevance to teaching STEM subjects in UK schools.
Moments
This series of interactive excel sheets investigate models involving moments.
The first sheet helps students to investigate the moment of a force about a point. The components of the force can also be revealed.
The second sheet demonstrates how unequal weights can balance each other on a light rod. Individual variables can be adjusted in order to see the effect this has on the other values in the model.
The third sheets shows a model of a beam suspended by two strings. The position of the centre of gravity of the beam and a mass, M, can be adjusted in order to see the effect this has on the tension in each string.
The fourth model is of a man stood on top of a heavy beam with two supports. The conditions for equilibrium can be investigated by altering the values of a number of the different parameters.
The final sheet illustrates how the moment of the force is maximised by rotating the pedals of a bicycle relative to a crank. The angles involved and the length of the perpendicular distance from the pivot can be adjusted, and the resulting moment of the force calculated. If “Racing Bike” is selected both pedal are assumed to have an equal force exerted upon them, and so the value of the turning moment is doubled.
Note
This program was designed by be viewed on a screen with a resolution of 1024 x 768. Users may have to adjust the resolution of their screen for the pages to display as was originally intended. The program uses macros which need to be enabled on users’ machine.
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