Finding Centroids the Easy Way

by John Menezes

Submitted : Spring 2012

The purpose of this project was to figure out a way to quickly and efficiently find the centroid location of any homogenous, arbitrary, 2-dimensional shape. This was done by using Excel to create a spreadsheet which allowed the user to input the length and height, or a function corresponding to the length and height, and receive the centroid location of that shape. The spreadsheet used formulas that consisted of trapezoidal integration in order to mathematically calculate the centroid location. Once the spreadsheet was created, the calculations were tested by using two shapes with a known centroid location. The test proved to be successful and was followed by calculating the centroid of a given arbitrary shape. This project’s success means that centroid locations can be found much faster and more efficiently.

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