Wedge
Made by: Fallon Judd and Sidney Weikel
What is a wedge?
A wedge is a piece of material, such as metal or wood, thick at one edge and tapered to a thin edge at the other for insertion in a narrow crevice, used for splitting, tightening, securing, or levering.
Examples of wedges
A axe and a door stop are common uses for wedges.
Mechanical Advantages
A wedge is characterized by an object that has a defined width at one side that slopes to a point at the other end. This simple machines allows a force that is applied over a large area to be concentrated upon an edge or smaller area, such as a knife. This concentration of force is the mechanical advantage (MA) the wedge provides. Each of the six simple machines offers a mechanical advantage, and it can be quickly calculated for a wedge. The mechanical advantage of a wedge can be found by dividing the length of either slope (S) by the thickness (T) of the big end.
Word Problems Using the Pythagorean Theorem - Example 1