Intersection Evaluation
Reflection
The Traffic Intersection Project was a way to apply the physics of friction to a real-world scenario. Students evaluated various intersections in and around Durango, and chose one that they thought needed improvement. When choosing the intersection, students considered the available stopping distance coming from al directions, and how the coefficient of friction may or may not play a key role in the safety of the intersection. Once the intersection was chosen, data including how fast the average car traveled through the intersection and the available stopping distance was recorded. Based on that data, students gave the intersection a safety grade that was justified by the data.
We chose to do E 2nd Avenue and College, which is a busy intersection that provides access to downtown Durango and Fort Lewis College. Our intersection was good because we were able to collect a lot of data due to the high volume of traffic and pedestrians. What we didn’t expect, however, was that the intersection was safe before we evaluated it. Because of how safe the intersection was prior to evaluation, it was hard to find changes that would make a significant difference. For this reason, I don’t think I would choose the intersection again if I were going to redo the project. I think that in order to avoid this problem in the future, it would be best if the teacher selected intersections that she knew to be or was convinced were unsafe, and then have students choose from the options.
I was really proud of how professional our model looked. At exhibition, it was the key focusing point, because we used it to show what we were talking about, and why certain suggestion may or may not have been sensible to improve the intersection. It was nice not having to worry about how the model looked, because we knew it was an impressive piece of work, so we could focus more on explaining the physics concepts to people in attendance at exhibition. If we could have improved one thing, I think that our analysis on the paper could have gone a little bit more in depth. At the exhibition, people started asking questions about types of cars and wheels affecting the stopping distance, which we hadn’t even considered taking into account. If we had gone more in depth on the analysis, I think that we would have been able to have a much more thorough project and evaluation.
If I were to have more time on the project, I would have evaluated the cost-benefit of each suggested improvement. This evaluation would have made the project much more thorough and useful to an organization like CDOT. In order to make the project more accurate, it would have been nice to have a way to measure the grade accurately, so if we had some way to obtain a measuring device for that I think I would have had a lot more confidence in our results. It was great having access to a radar gun, because we knew where we were getting our numbers, so if the same thing could be done with the grade, I think we would have all we needed to complete a professional, accurate project.
Overall, I would say that the project was successful and a great way to apply concepts we had been learning in class. With a couple more modifications, I think that this project would be able to useful for organizations such as CDOT.
We chose to do E 2nd Avenue and College, which is a busy intersection that provides access to downtown Durango and Fort Lewis College. Our intersection was good because we were able to collect a lot of data due to the high volume of traffic and pedestrians. What we didn’t expect, however, was that the intersection was safe before we evaluated it. Because of how safe the intersection was prior to evaluation, it was hard to find changes that would make a significant difference. For this reason, I don’t think I would choose the intersection again if I were going to redo the project. I think that in order to avoid this problem in the future, it would be best if the teacher selected intersections that she knew to be or was convinced were unsafe, and then have students choose from the options.
I was really proud of how professional our model looked. At exhibition, it was the key focusing point, because we used it to show what we were talking about, and why certain suggestion may or may not have been sensible to improve the intersection. It was nice not having to worry about how the model looked, because we knew it was an impressive piece of work, so we could focus more on explaining the physics concepts to people in attendance at exhibition. If we could have improved one thing, I think that our analysis on the paper could have gone a little bit more in depth. At the exhibition, people started asking questions about types of cars and wheels affecting the stopping distance, which we hadn’t even considered taking into account. If we had gone more in depth on the analysis, I think that we would have been able to have a much more thorough project and evaluation.
If I were to have more time on the project, I would have evaluated the cost-benefit of each suggested improvement. This evaluation would have made the project much more thorough and useful to an organization like CDOT. In order to make the project more accurate, it would have been nice to have a way to measure the grade accurately, so if we had some way to obtain a measuring device for that I think I would have had a lot more confidence in our results. It was great having access to a radar gun, because we knew where we were getting our numbers, so if the same thing could be done with the grade, I think we would have all we needed to complete a professional, accurate project.
Overall, I would say that the project was successful and a great way to apply concepts we had been learning in class. With a couple more modifications, I think that this project would be able to useful for organizations such as CDOT.