This Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was the Pan-Pacific Robotics Tournament. 86 teams from Hawaii, California, and China came and competed in a giant convention of physics! A majority of the designs involved some sort of scoop and basket that dumped balls over the wall in the center of the field. In order to collect the balls, the scoop must apply an upward force that is equal but opposite to the weight of the ball(s) that it is trying to pick up. This causes the balls to be lifted at a constant velocity. However, our scoop rotated around an axis so as the balls were moving they were changing in their angular position so they were accelerating because velocity is speed and direction. Also, as the balls were being raised their potential energy was increasing as PE is mgh. When the balls were dumped into the basket and were driven to the wall, they were being displaced, but since force was being applied perpendicularly to the ground (direction of motion) no work was being done. Work is Force times displacement.
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