HUMAN HORSEPOWER

A STUDY OF THE POWER OUTPUT IN A PUSHUP

In this investigation, students determine the power exerted while a "subject" does pushups. Some sample subjects include their classmates, members of sports teams and other volunteers. As shown in the teacher notes, all of the calculations can come from the motion detector and the results of measuring the subject's weight on their hands.

STUDENT PRELAB QUESTIONS

This is a worksheet that can be used to get students into the situation. They are asked a series of questions about the calculations that need to be made and how they can go about doing them. Using their responses, they then go on to conduct the lab on a subsequent day.

STUDENT LAB GUIDE

This is a the worksheet that is used by the students as they begin their investigation following the prelab day.

TEACHER'S GUIDE TO THE LAB

This document gives the background for all the calculations and procedures to carry out this investigation. The experiment calls for using a Macintosh computer with a ULI interface, Motion Detector and MacMotion program. Other computer/interface/program combinations can be used to achieve the same results.