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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.
Air Tracking of a Ground Object
This engineering resource, produced by Mathematics in Education and Industry (MEI) for the Royal Academy of Engineering, asks the question: how can a camera, mounted on a helicopter, be used to track the location of a ground-based object? A number of discussion ideas are considered before using 2D and 3D coordinates to represent the problem and calculate distance. The problem of the helicopter moving is then addressed using vectors to describe the velocity of the helicopter. Scalar product is used to calculate the angle between two vectors. The mathematics covered in this activity:
- Know how 2-D and 3-D coordinate geometry is used to describe lines, planes and conic sections within engineering design and algebra
- Understand the methods of linear algebra
- Know how to use algebraic processes
- Comprehend translations of common realistic engineering contexts into mathematics
Please note, some interactive files have been removed from this resource, as they are no longer supported by Adobe Flash Player.
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