Parabolas and the Art of Spitting

The maths that proves that the 45 degree angle is the angle that produces the maximum distance travelled is quite tricky and involves trigonometry. But this just shows how cool maths can be. See the full calculations here.

More long bow maths here at ROBINHOOD GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT. 

Interesting maths work on WHICH SPORT IS MORE DANGEROUS, BASEBALL OR CRICKET? here.

World Record Watermelon Seed Spitting Maths

Here are some worksheets on MEAN, MEDIAN and MODE for middle school students. It also involves work with units (Metric/USA). But these are real numbers and the distances that 14 year olds can spit watermelon seeds is amaaaazing!

You can find the free pdf worksheets  (included below) here.

Other fun middle school math(s) worksheets in the Hot Heels series at TpT include Unit Rates, Angles, Ratios and Algebra.

Ask volunteers to see how far they can spit a seed. (WARNING: The volunteer must breath in through their nose before they spit. You don’t want them inhaling a seed.)

ANSWER SHEETS

Hair Maths 3: How OLD is your hair?

The follicle diagram (above) came from bgoffforensics blog. More on hair growth rates here.

QUESTION 1:

QUESTION 2: 

The growth rates of 1.25 cm/month or 0.5 inches/month are rounded off. Calculations using these growth rates will produce different answers for very large numbers (as above). Read more about the above story in the Daily Mail, UK here. By the way, Asha has been growing her hair for 25 years. Her hair weighs 3 stone or 19 kg. You can find more hair records including the World’s longest ear hair here.

QUESTION 3:

Natasha lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Read more about Natasha in the Daily Mail here. Once again Mathspig has rounded off the length of hair for easy calculation. The Daily Mail puts Natasha’s ‘mane’ at 5 feet 2 inches or 157 cm. This is the length of hair to be cut off. So Mathspig adjusted the length to 180cm or the approx length of her longest hair.