TEEMSS: Collision I Background

Thinking About the Question

What happens when two objects collide?

Collisions happen so fast that it's hard to see what was going on during the event. You just see the results of a smashed car or a home run or a sore hand. Sometimes you want big forces, as with a baseball bat or a karate chop, and sometimes you want to decrease the forces, as with a safety helmet.

In this activity you will use the Force probe to actually measure what happens during a collision. How big are the forces? How long do they last? What features of the colliding objects make the forces bigger or smaller? How would you increase or decrease the forces during a collision? Write or draw in Notes on your handheld computer your ideas about how to do this.