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Step 1
Picture yourself at the top edge of a half pipe, getting ready to make your descent into the bowl. At that point, stationary as you are, you represent all possible potential energy for this exercise. This means that your energy is not yet being used, but has the potential to be used.
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Step 2
Start down into the bowl. At the halfway point between top and bottom, you represent the potential energy becoming kinetic, that is, energy now being expressed, though, in your position, you still have more potential energy to give.
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Step 3
Notice that, at the bottom of the bowl, you now are fully expressing the energy you had stored, and all you have is kinetic energy. The potential energy is spent.
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Step 4
Review the principle of conservation of energy, which states that after any such process where energy is stored and expressed, the sum of the orginal kinetic and potential energies will be equal to that at the end of the process. Once you go up the other side of the bowl and are in a position to come down again, you represent that potential energy ready to become kinetic all over again.
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Step 5
Apply this principle to increase the energy involved—and, thus, to increase your height and/or speed each time—by crouching into the vertical drop on the way down, standing near the bottom, then crouching coming off the bottom, and standing up as you approach the up-side vertical.
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Step 6
Use gravity and the principles of physics to increase your potential energy, which, in turn, increases your kinetic energy.
