How does skateboarding relate to physics

These arrows show you how much force acts on an object at every instant, and in which direction the force acts.

So for example, if you were to kick a ball into the air, while the ball was mid-flight, this arrow would always point down and be the same length, even though the ball is moving forward. That's because the only force acting on the ball is gravity, which pulls it straight down, and acts with a constant strength. For those of you who've studied physics, these arrows denote the acceleration of the center of mass, which by Newton's second law is proportional to the net force acting on the skateboard.

It's a neat piece of science art, and it also tells us something interesting. The arrows show us that the force on the skateboard is constantly changing, both in magnitude as well as in direction. Now the force of gravity obviously isn't changing, so the reason that these force arrows are shrinking and growing and tumbling around is that the skater is changing how their feet pushes and pulls against the board.

By applying a variable force that changes both in strength and direction, they're steering the board. Crucially, at any instant, each foot applies a different amount of force.

These unequal forces at each end is what causes the skateboard to turn in physics lingo, it creates a torque. It's how the skater steers the board. We can see this more clearly if we subtract away the motion of the center of mass i.

Physics plays a big factor in doing those cool tricks! What is a skateboard? A skateboard is made up of three parts: the deck, the trucks which connects the wheels to the board and last off, the wheels.

There are two types of decks: concave curved and plan form. Skaters use their front foot to level out the board to make their landing pad. The speed of the take-off and the jumping ability of the skater affects the amplitude, or height, of the jump, which takes the shape of a parabolic arc.

Keeping your feet on the bolts, especially during a high-force landing, is critical. Is the stance too wide altogether? But when any spinning is added to the mix, centrifugal and centripetal forces are at play. Perhaps the most classic moment-of-inertia users are figure skaters. The friction force acting on the board as it rolls along due to contact with the ground is small and doesn't slow the board down appreciably.

As a result, its velocity is approximately the same as the horizontal velocity of the skateboarder. This allows the skateboarder to land back on the board. To make the jump more challenging, the skateboarder can do the jump over an obstacle, as shown below.

It is often used as the basis of other more complicated tricks. The beginning of the Ollie consists of two basic actions, occurring at roughly the same time. The first action is the skateboarder jumping up and off the board.

This is accompanied by him pushing down quickly on the tail end of the board, causing it to rebound off the ground and bounce back up. The skateboarder then guides the board along with his feet as it flies through the air, enabling him to land back on top of it. The figure below illustrates the physics of the Ollie. The arrows represent the forces acting on the board during the different stages of the trick.

The red arrows represent the force exerted on the board by the skateboarder's feet. The black arrow represents the force of gravity pulling down on the board this force is acting through the center of mass of the board. The blue arrows represent the force exerted on the board by the ground. His right foot is on the tail of the board and his left foot is near the middle of the board. The three forces represented by the red, black, and blue arrows all balance out to zero in this stage since the board is stationary with no acceleration.

In stage 2 , the skater propels himself upward by explosively straightening his legs and lifting up his arms. At the same time he pushes down with his right foot much harder than with his left foot. This causes the board to tilt back and strike the ground with the tail. When the tail strikes the ground a large vertical impulse force is generated with the ground denoted by the long blue arrow. This propels the board upward and also causes the board to rotate clockwise.

He then slides his left foot to the left along the board and tilts it somewhat, allowing him to "grab" the rough surface of the board using the edge of his shoe. This enables him to guide the board along during the remainder of its motion as it becomes airborne.