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Last September, after forming our Supercomputing Challenge Team, we began brainstorming possible topics for our project. We knew that we wanted our project to deal with physics, and so after much thought and debate we finally decided to do the project over the rattleback. We were interested in how this seemingly simple toy could display properties that seem to defy basic principles of physics. After deciding on a topic for this project we began to research the rattleback in depth. We began by searching the internet for information that might be of some use. We were finally able to contact Monica Schulze from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Ms. Schulze had done a paper [4] on the non-mathematical analysis of the motions of a semi-ellipsoidal spinner for her thesis. Her report provided us with a list of references that were used in her paper. Among these references was a paper by Kane, "Realistic Mathematical Modeling of the Rattleback" [3]. We contacted several local and college libraries but were unable to come up with any of the references that were listed. At the same time we were also searching for information on where we might be able to locate some of these articles through the internet. After days of searching and e-mailing many sites including many prominent universities and not coming up with anything which would be of help to us we finally decided to e-mail the library at Texas Tech University to see if they could provide any suggestions. We were truly surprised then, when they e-mailed us back the next day to say that they had Ref [3] and three other articles referenced in Ref [4] located in their library. Since Texas Tech is over 100 miles away from us we had them fax the articles to our local library where we were finally able to obtain them and continue on with our project. Ref [3] was the basis for beginning our project. Kane's 1986 analysis formed the theory for modeling the rattleback. We, with the help of Dr. John Russell of the University of New Mexico School of Engineering, decided to take this analysis to the next level and try to numerically solve the equations allowing predictions about the behavior of the device. We also hoped that this analysis would lead to a graphical interpretation that would simulate its path after varying various input parameters. In order to pursue this endeavor we had to simplify things by assuming no slip. We wanted to solve the equations under the simplest conditions so we could study the rattleback's behavior. We realize that slippage and energy dissipation due to air will occur but felt that performing the experiments in a no slip and simulated vacuum environment was the best starting place for our project. |