From: anonymous_at_satx.rr.com
Date: Tue Sep 25 2007 - 07:54:41 PDT
Experiment Report for the Eratosthenes Project on http://youth.net/ School Name: anonymous Homeschool School Location: Universal City, TX Email Address: anonymous_at_satx.rr.com Experimenter: anonymous Latitude 29.558 Longitude: -98.31 Distance to Equator: 3287 km Measured shadow angle in degrees: 29.52 Calculated Earth circumference: 40080.21 Comments: It would have been easier if we had started measuring a few days before to practice. The first day was nice but we hadn't practiced. The second day we were ready, but it was cloudy and windy. We made an astrolabe. To get the angle right, we taped a pool noodle to part of a bed frame. The pool noodle was 4' long, 2.5" thick, with a .5" hole down the middle. When light shone down the middle, we hung a wrench using dental floss to get the distance to the ground. We measured the lengths of all three sides to calculate the final angle.