"Tug of war" Maths&Sports project

Abstract Tug of war is a sport which originated from rituals practiced by ancient populations and now is an organized sport. In this paper we present the project that we proposed to a group of high school students, in order that they analysed the physics of tug of war and produced a model. The project was carried out with the support of the math and physics teachers of the students involved. After some introductory lessons, the students worked independently producing results that were discussed with us. Virtual simulations were carried out in the school laboratory using first Excel and then the open source LÖVE graphics engine. The experiments were done in the school gym. The students asked the collaboration of players of some teams of tug of war to validate the expected tactics of the mathematical model. Keywords: Mathematics, Physics, Sport