New Zealand Scholarship Physics case studies
New Zealand Scholarship Physics · Put your knowledge to work in context.
New Zealand Scholarship is an award that recognises top secondary school students, administered by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). It is not a qualification in its own right and does not require you to be working towards NCEA, but you must be enrolled in a consented New Zealand secondary school to enter. The New Zealand Scholarship Physics case studies are 5 cases and about 2,790 words.
1Spinning Wheel on a Rotating Stool
In a laboratory, a student sits on a low-friction rotating stool and holds a bicycle wheel by its axle. The axle is vertical and aligned with the stool's rotation axis, so the wheel's spin angular momentum is vertical.
556 words, about 3 min2Banked Curve on a Wet Road
A road engineer is checking a curve of radius 75 m banked at 10° to the horizontal. The design must keep a 1200 kg car on the road when the surface is wet, with coefficient of static friction μ s = 0.35.
556 words, about 3 min3Released Piston in an Insulated Cylinder
A vertical cylinder with insulating walls contains 0.015 mol of diatomic gas, treated as ideal with Cv = 5R/2. A frictionless, insulating piston of mass 4.0 kg and area 2.0×10^-3 m² is held by a pin, compressing the gas to 0.12 L at 290 K.
604 words, about 3 min4Magnet Falling Through a Copper Tube
A student investigates electromagnetic braking by dropping a small neodymium magnet through a vertical copper tube. The tube is 1.20 m long, with inner diameter 13 mm and wall thickness 1.5 mm, and is open at both ends.
546 words, about 3 min5Diffraction Grating with a Green Laser
A student uses a diffraction grating labelled 600 lines per millimetre to measure the wavelength of a green laser. The grating is mounted 1.50 m from a screen.
528 words, about 3 min