{"id":34,"date":"2024-10-17T01:31:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T01:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~NicolaC\/?page_id=34"},"modified":"2025-06-06T16:49:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T16:49:32","slug":"explorations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~NicolaC\/explorations\/","title":{"rendered":"Explorations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Explorations Project<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Explorations Project was an opportunity given to all Freestyle Juniors to explore a new skill or topic that interests them. This can be a discovery, exploration, or expansion of the student’s passion. Whether it takes the form of a physical product, an illustration, a film, etc., a student’s Explorations Project will be the product of their unique voice as a creative.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For my Explorations Project, I chose to combine my interests in both physics and animation to produce an animation that is accurate to real-world motion. Part of my inspiration to do this was the fact that I enrolled in AP Physics 1 in the first place because I had convinced myself that it had applications in animation (which is very incorrect). This project was a way for me to force that connection between these two classes that ultimately had nothing to do with each other, while also expanding my creative and visual literacy skills in animation.<\/mark><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

My process for my Explorations Project consisted of 3 main steps: Finding my initial conditions, doing the calculations, and creating the animation.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For the initial conditions, I decided which materials certain elements of my animation would be made out of. The cube would be made of brass, and the sliding surface would be made of steel. Other variables I had to establish early on were the coefficient of drag of the cube, the volume and mass of the cube, the frontal area of the cube, the liquid the cube would fall into, the dimensions of the triangular incline, the initial velocity coming out of the cannon, etc.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My calculations used a narrow range of equations, being mostly kinematics and the rest using Newton’s 2nd Law in some way. Other equations I used were buoyant force and drag force in water. I drew free-body diagrams to aid with my understanding of the forces at play and to reference for my math.<\/mark><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Finally, I created the animation almost exclusively in Procreate, only using Adobe After Effects at the end of my process to edit my assets together. I used the onion skin, rotation, and transform tools to produce the desired path of motion in my animation. I also created guides for myself on the canvas to help with consistency and accuracy to physics principles.<\/mark><\/p>\n<\/div>

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Below is my final Explorations Project production, or in other words, my final animation. Using a combination of physics concepts, mathematics, and animation knowledge, I created a relatively accurate digital visualization of the movement of a brass cube through a sliding, free fall, and liquid environment.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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