I'm quite a bit behind the times, but here is a selection of the independent projects from Honors Physics last year - it was a great crop of creative projects!
- A project examining the physics of the zipline scene from Divergent: would the cable/device really get red hot?
- An examination of a unique binary star system: two identical stars orbiting, with a planet in the center. How far away do they need to be so that the planet isn't torn apart? What would the surface gravity be?
- An examination of the energetics of the world-record trampoline bounce: is that as high as they could've gone?
- The creation and evaluation of a model describing head impacts: the brain is taken to be an object connected to the skull by springs. Values for parameters are determined and the behavior is simulated via Excel spreadsheet and compared to actual concussion data.
- Some myth busting here: is this video of a baseball player hitting a ball so that it bounces off of multiple ball returns and back to him real?
- Investigation of the physics of a railgun; some parameters determined via Python modeling, once the equations of motion are determined
