Ant-on-Wheel Assignment: 
What to Include

• Cover sheet (do this last)
• Problem statement
• Description of experiment (include also: sheet with directions, data collection sheet, sketch of graph);
• Results of experiment (enter your results into an excel spreadsheet and do the following graphs: (a) angle vs. height of center and height of ant; (b) angle vs. distance of center and distance of ant; (c) distance of center vs. height of center; (d) distance of ant vs. height of ant; (use smooth scatterplots for all graphs); Note: If you need help with Excel, please let me know.
• Development of height and distance formulas; GSP drawing as well as explanation what the formulas mean and how they make sense. Click here for this gsp file It is okay to write the explanations on the GSP page; however, the GSP text writing pad is almost impossible to format (no tabs, etc., so the printed may look uneven. Also, the printed page sometimes has overlaps that you don't see in the preview. So you have to see whether you like what you see printed. I personally prefer to copy the GSP picture into a Word document. One piece of advice: If the position of the picture is hard to manage, go to "Format Picture," choose the position tab and deselect "Float over text."
• I personally prefer to copy the GSP picture into a Word document. One piece of advice: If the position of the picture is hard to manage, go to "Format Picture," choose the position tab and deselect "Float over text."
• Excel table with data and graphs based on the formulas (a) angle vs. height of center and height of ant; (b) angle vs. distance of center and distance of ant; (d) distance of ant vs. height of ant. If you prefer to have the angles in degrees on the x-axis (rather than the counter t or the angle in radians) just introduce an extra column (= counter * 10) and designate this column to be the x-values.
• Food for Thought (click here for this reflection)
• The last part of this unit will be about speed/velocity of the ant and the center at various points of time. You can start with this section, although we are not quite finished. Click here to see the photo of the "mushy" wheel :)

Dr. Olive created two GSP files that you might find very helpful as you investigate the concept of the ant's velocity and the representative vectors.

If you want to ivestigate the ant's velocity as it moves around just a spinning circle (like the ferris wheel), click here.

If you want to investigate the ant's velocity as it moves around a rolling and spinning circle (like the bicycle wheel, click here.