Cannon Bear

Sara
May 23, 2014
Youre on your daily walk around your neighborhood when you notice a bear 60 meters
away with a cannon. Youre 35 meters from your front door when the bear shoots himself
from the mouth of the cannon 1 meter above the ground with an initial velocity of 27
m/s. If the mouth of the cannon is positioned 30

above the horizontal and the bear can

run with a land speed of 13 m/s on touchdown, what is the minimum speed you need to
run at in order to reach your front door before the bear to avoid being eaten? Ignore air
resistance.
1 Solution
To begin we need to gure out how far the bear must travel to reach your front door. Once
we have this information we can calculate how long it will take the bear to get from point
a to point b.
First: Our friendly neighborhood bear needs to travel a total of 95 meters.
Separate vertical and horizontal components of the bears movement and treat them
independantly.
Our Kinematics for the y-Direction
a
y
= g,

g = 9.8m/s
2

v
y
=
Z
g dt. = gt + v
0,y
1
y =
Z
gt + v
0,y
dt. =
1
2
gt
2
+ v
0,y
t + y
0
v
i
= 27m/s
The mouth of the cannon is 30

above the horizontal. 30

=

6
radians. Now we can
calculate our starting velocities in the x and y directions
v
0,y
= v
0
sin

6
= 13.5m/s
v
0,x
= v
0
cos

6
= 23.4m/s
First lets calculate how long it takes the bear to reach the top of his trajectory
v
y
= 0 =

9.8m/s
2

t + 13.5m/s
t = 1.38s
So it takes the bear 1.38 seconds to reach the top of his trajectory. Using this we can
calculate the maximum height of the bears trajectory
y =
1
2

9.8m/s
2

(1.38s)
2
+ (13.5m/s) (1.38s) + 1m
y = 10.3m
So the maximum altitude the bear reaches is 10.3 meters. Lets use this information to
nd out how long it takes the bear to return to Earth.
10.3m =
1
2
(9.8m/s
2
)t
2
t = 1.45s
Youll notice above I set v
0,y
= 0. This is because at the maximum trajectory of the bears
ascent into the great blue beyond his vertical speed is reduced to zero. So now we have
shown that it takes 1.38 seconds for the bear to reach his maximum altitude, and 1.45
seconds for him to return to Earth. This implies that the bear is airborne for a total of
1.38+1.45 = 2.83 seconds. Now we can gure out how far the bear travels in the horizontal
direction.
x = v
x
t
x = (23.4m/s)(2.83s) = 66.2m
So of the total 95 meters the bear needs to travel to get to your front door he has traveled
66.2 meters. This means he still has to gallop another 28.8 meters. Lucky you! If the bear
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can run at a maximum speed of 13m/s it will take another
28.8m
13m/s
= 2.22s. Excellent! Now
we know it will take 2.22s + 2.83s = 5.05s to reach your front door! So how fast do you
have to run in order to avoid being eaten? Well the very BEAR minimum velocity you will
need to sustain in order to avoid being lunchmeat will take you to the door at the exact
moment that the bear reaches it. This means you need to travel a total of 35 meters in
5.05 seconds, or
35m
5.05s
= 6.93m/s.
Excellent, so you will need to run at the very minimum 6.93 m/s, or 15.5 mph to your
door to not get eaten, though ideally a little faster, because who likes to cut it that close?
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