Get dizzy: A kinesthetic lab on angular speed

Abstract

When we begin our unit on rotational dynamics, should we expect students to understand angular speed and angular acceleration without any prior experience or intuition? In this article, I describe a lab in which students are instructed to spin with different angular speeds, or angular frequencies, and in different units such as rad/s, rpms, and Hz or cps. I have found that after having students perform these spins, they have a better grasp of radians per second as a unit of angular speed and how it compares with Hz or rpms. Going further, this article also includes tips for using mobile phone apps to get more accurate measurements.