Centrifuge System

Physics is required to solve the first part of this challenge.

Free body diagram illustrating setup for challenge.

The challenge begins with massless pivot anchored to the ground. Connected to the pivot by two unbending metal rods a fixed third rotation apart are a weight and another massless pivot. The weight is 5 cm from the centre, the other pivot, 3 cm. The pivot is clockwise of the weight. Attached to the second pivot, there is also another wight, attached by another unbending rod, this one of length 3 cm. The first weight weighs 5 kilograms, the second, three. A force of 1 newton is applied for 1 second to the first weight, perpendicular to the metal rod, to make the system rotate counterclockwise. The challenge is to determine how many rotations per minute it will spin at.

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