02-05-2006, 13:39
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I live for the details.
 FRC #3620 (Average Joes) Team Role: Engineer
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Rookie Year: 1996
Location: Southwestern Michigan
Posts: 3,647
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Re: Where is Mark?
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Originally Posted by dlavery
Assuming an even distribution of the rate of comsumption during the trip, the average weight of the Red Bull would be 25,920 pounds. So the average mass moved during the trip is 26,100 pounds (Mark plus the Red Bull). Given the Atlanta-San Jose distance, it would take 336 billion ft-lbs of energy to get Mark and the Red Bull home. Mark's observed velocity during the competition is about 60 ft/sec (anyone that has watched Mark as MC during a match can attest to this). At this velocity, it should take Mark about 60 hours to run from Atlanta to San Jose, pulling a trailer full of Red Bull (which he is consuming as he goes). With 1 HP = 550 ft-lb/sec, that would mean he is putting out about 2831 horsepower during his little jog. Yeah, that seems about right.
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Anyone else see the conceptual error here?
Force required to move an object is only equal to the object's weight if it's going up. Power to move a trailer carrying a 13 ton payload at 60 ft/sec (about 40 mph) roughly horizontally is certainly much less that 2831 HP.
__________________
Richard Wallace
Mentor since 2011 for FRC 3620 Average Joes (St. Joseph, Michigan)
Mentor 2002-10 for FRC 931 Perpetual Chaos (St. Louis, Missouri)
 since 2003
I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)
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