Mathcad Community Challenge May 2025 - Spin Gravity!
This month’s challenge is based on spin gravity and emphasizes creativity!
Spin gravity is a method of creating the sense of gravity in a low- or zero- gravity environment using rotational movement. During this circular motion, objects with mass feel a fictitious centrifugal force “pushing” them away from the center. This force can feel like the gravity we experience on Earth.
You can either design your own space station / vehicle or choose one (or more) from science fiction books, television shows, movies, video games, or other media. Then create a Mathcad worksheet to calculate the following:
- Radius of your spinning object.
- Centrifugal acceleration in both distance units per second squared and g’s (acceleration due to gravity at the earth’s surface). Note that your vehicle / station does not need to be 1g. Less than 1g makes it easier to move. More than 1g would help improve your jump shot on your eventual return to Earth.
- Angular velocity in radians, degrees, and revolutions per time unit. Don’t spin too fast, or you will make people feel sick!
- Tangential velocity.
Examples from popular media include:
- Books: Ringworld, Rendezvous with Rama, The Expanse series, The Culture series, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and The Forever War.
- Video games: Halo, Prey, and Kerbal Space Program.
- Television shows: Babylon 5, The Expanse, and For All Mankind.
- Film: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Interstellar, The Martian, Elysium, Mission to Mars, and Zeta Gundam.
In “real” science, O’Neill Cylinders were proposed by Professor Gerard K. O’Neill in 1974. Maybe you can design your own or a variation.
Note that if you create your worksheet in Mathcad Prime 11, you can use a custom unit system in your worksheet! This can be extremely helpful depending on how big you want your station or vehicle to be.
Bonus Advanced Input Controls Challenge
Incorporate Combo Boxes, Sliders, Check Boxes, Radio Buttons, or any other input controls to allow users to change a parameter to see how it affects other calculations.
Bonus Graphing Challenge
Use XY Plots, 3D Plots, Contour Plots, or Chart Components to depict the acceleration due to gravity as a function of one or more other parameters for a space station / vehicle.
Have fun with this!
Find the Mathcad Community Challenge Guidelines here!