Purpose
A guide to carrying out an experiment to calculate personal power
To plan and carry out experiments to measure personal power, by measuring the time taken to climb a staircase or performing a number of step-ups to a platform.
Apparatus
1 short flight of stairs, a 50 cm rule, a stop clock, bathroom scales marked in kg.
Method
- Measure the persons mass in kg using bathroom scales.
- Convert it to weight using W = mg. This equals the upward force that will move up the stairs.
- Measure the height of 1 step using the 50 cm rule. Record in m in a suitable table. Repeat for two more steps and calculate the average height in m.
- Count the number of steps and record.
- Calculate the vertical height = number of steps x average height of 1 step.
- Calculate the work done = force x vertical height.
- Time the person running the stairs. Record in the table. After a rest repeat the experiment and calculate average time.
- Calculate the persons average power using: power = \(\frac{work~done}{time~taken}\)