return to home page Digital Cameras in Education eBooks in Education Technology Enhanced Literature Circles Effective Distance Education Assistive Technology in Education Teaching Science with Dinosaur Footprints Science Education Resources Other Technology Applications and Fun Stuff
Quick menu - click on the above images

  return to homepage
more about us
courses we teach
educational resources
some of our books and other publications
workshops that we will present
some of our recent presentations
search the DrsCavanaugh site
contact us by email

Basic Program

Use a computer running BASIC (BASIC, qbasic, visual basic, or any other general basic). Type in the following program. Type in all of the program and then save it. After you have saved the program follow your systems commands to start running the program. This program allows the user to input information about the trackway in terms of foot size and stride length. It will then use this information to calculate the speed of the animal (in various units). Be very careful to type in all of the program correctly especially the calculating formulas.

10 REM A basic program to calculate speed from dinosaur tracks using
15 REM Alexander's formula
20 CLS
25 PRINT : PRINT
30 PRINT "This program calculates speed using foot length"
40 PRINT " and stride distances. Make all measurements in centimeters."
45 PRINT " Type in the numbers to answer the questions and press enter."
50 PRINT : PRINT :
60 INPUT "What is the length of the foot print in centimeters? ", foot!
70 PRINT : PRINT "A stride is two successive right or left foot prints."
80 INPUT "What is the stride distance in centimeters? ", stride!
90 hip! = foot! * 4
91 length! = foot! * 10
92 speed! = 7.8 * (stride! ^ 1.67) * (hip! ^ -1.17): REM calculate the speed in cm/sec
93 speedm! = speed! / 100: REM changes speed to meters/sec
94 speedf! = speedm! * 3.2: REM changes speed to feet/sec
95 speedk! = speedm! * 3.6: REM changes speed to kilometers per hour
96 speedmph! = speedf! * .68: REM changes speed to miles per hour
100 PRINT : PRINT "---------------------------------------------------------" 110 PRINT "The results for a trackway with a foot length of "; foot!; " cm, and" 120 PRINT " a stride length of "; stride!; " cm:"
125 PRINT
130 PRINT "The approximate hip height is "; hip!; " cm."
140 PRINT "The approximate length of the animal is "; length!; " cm."
145 PRINT
150 PRINT "The trackway indicates an approximate speed of:"
151 PRINT speed!; " centimeters per second or "; speedm!; " meters per second or"
152 PRINT speedk!; " kilometers per hour."
153 PRINT
154 PRINT "The speed could also be stated as "; speedf!; " feet per second or "
155 PRINT speedmph!; " miles per hour."
160 PRINT : PRINT
170 INPUT "Calculate another? (type Y or N and then press enter)"; again$
180 IF again$ = "Y" OR again$ = "y" THEN GOTO 20 ELSE END

 

back   next
Site Search

Drs.Cavanaugh

 

Send mail to cavanaugh@drscavanaugh.org with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2006 Drs.Cavanaugh  Last modified: March 06, 2008