Physics is a science that involves matter and energy! It has to do with motion, forces, momentum, and different types of waves. Just as Biology and Chemistry are big branches of science, Physics is one as well. I feel that these three big sciences are the three that play a big part of our life. So in other words, Physics is a science of life! :)
I really enjoyed this class! It was very eye opening class that helped me view the world differently! The labs were very entertaining, Mr. Blake explained things in ways we were able to understand it, and it was in general very fun!
I felt that the most important thing I learned in this class is how Physics is present in our daily lives. It never occurred to me how important physics is and how many things are able to function because of it.
I liked how our activities in the class were very "hands on" kind of activities. In Chemistry, you'd see different reaction of concepts you learn in class, but you don't always see why they react like that because it's more microscopic. In Physics, we are able to see and learn from the different demonstrations! It made learning the material easier to understand!
I felt that this class is awesome the way it is! It's hard learning about science during the summer with such limited time. But I felt that this class did a very good job of teaching it to us!
Mr. Blake,
Thanks for being such an awesome teacher! We will definitely miss you and look forward to seeing you sometime in the future! :)
From, Jess Wu
Lights, Camera, Action!!
Taking a picture involves a lot more physics than you would think! First off, in order to take a picture of something, the light reflection from an object needs to reach the camera! If the light is dim, the camera needs to open up its lens just as the pupil in an eye widens. This allows more light to come in!
I took this picture while looking in a mirror, which involves physics as well! This mirror is a regular mirror. So if you were to bounce a beam of light perpendicular to it, it would reflect off the mirror and bounce straight back. If you had a concave or convex mirror, when standing in it, you would look differently because the light reflecting off is curved and reflected in different ways.
If I took this picture 0.5 meter away from the mirror, you would think that my reflection is 0.5 meters from me. But because the distance from and object to the mirror equals the distance from the mirror to the image, the actual distance between me and my reflection is 1 meter!
"And At Last I See The Light!!!!!"
Although I've used this picture before, I feel like this is related to our unit on electromagnetic waves and color. To make a picture like this, you have to be in a dark room and use a flashlight and a DSLR camera. After turning the camera setting to "bulb", angle the flashlight towards the camera, press and hold the button, and then draw or write!
This demonstrates physics concepts in different ways! The flashlight is an example of a light emitter, (which is something that gives off light) and it travels in lines. In order for the light drawing to show up, the light from the flashlight needs to go to the lens. When the light is angled towards me and the camera, it creates a shadow, which is the absence of light, in the back of me. The light from the flashlight was a white light, which means that it has all the frequency of light (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet).
Although this seems like an irrelevant and random picture, it exemplifies what we have learned about electromagnetic waves so far! Electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light, which is 3 x 10^8 meters/second. So that means as I took this picture in a chocolate shop in Las Vegas, the light traveled to my eyes at the speed of 3 x 10^8 meters/second.
As you can see, there are things in this picture that allow the light waves on the ceiling to pass through and things that don't allow light waves to pass. For example, the flowers that are solid are opaque, which means they don't allow the light waves to pass though it. Something that is transparent in the picture, which means they allow the light waves to pass, is the glass like things on the ceiling. If all the lights on the ceiling were covered by an opaque object, it would prevent me from seeing anything because light waves have to travel to your eyes in order for you to see something. That's the reason why it's easier to see things in lit areas! Its interesting how you can take any picture and connect it to waves!
"Can you hear me now?... Good!"
Piano has been a part of my life since I was four years old. Who knew that waves and piano were so connected! Anything that involves sound travels waves! As I play piano I press the keys, which cause a small hammer inside of the piano to fall on a string and its vibrations give off sound waves. The vibrations travel to your ear and vibrate your ear drum. So as you listen to me play the piano, the sound waves are vibrating in your ear!!
Each note on the piano has a different frequency. That's the reason why it sounds different. However, the reason you are able to play chords is because all notes on the piano travel at the same speed. Piano ties in with physics more than I thought it would!
Unit 9!
Waves are actually a part of our lives a lot more than people think! Waves in water, microwave waves used in microwaves, radio waves that are used to operate radios, the ultra violet waves my mom wants me protected from the sun, sound waves from Mr. Blake yelling, "Its Physics, Babyyyyyyy" , and x-ray waves used for x-rays are examples of ways Physics is present in our lives. Another way waves are present is through slinkies!!
A slinky, which is the medium (or material the wave is going through) can help to demonstrate how waves work. Wave is a transfer of energy. So in the slinky, when someone moves one end, the ripples show the energy a person exerts on the slinky to get it to move.
The wave has a number of parts. The crest is the top of the wave, the trough is the bottom of the wave, the equilibrium point is the point where the wave would rest without any interferences, and the amplitude is the distance from the equilibrium point to its highest point. The wave also has a wave length (which is the length of the wave), wave speed (which is the speed of the wave), and frequency (which is the number of waves per unit of time). An easy way to measure the wave length is from trough to trough and crest to crest. Wave speed can be solved using the equation Velocity = Frequency x Wave Length and Frequency = Cycle / Second (Hertz).
A slinky causes a transverse wave which is a wave energy that moves perpendicular to the waves motion. When moving the slinky, if you move it at a constant speed, when it bounces back, it becomes inverse by equal. Because the waves cause both constructive (waves that add up to each other as they interfere) and destructive (waves that cancel each other as they interfere), they would make standing waves. Standing waves have nodes (not moving parts) and antinodes (moving parts). In a slinky, if standing waves are created, there has to be at least three nodes (one at both ends and one in the middle) and two antinodes (in between the middle node).
Slinkies aren't only fun to play with, but is also a good example of waves in Physics! :)
Steps to making a water bottle rocket!!!
1- Take two 2 Liter bottles
-Bottle one- Use duct tape to tape the outsides of the bottle to make it sturdy.
-Bottle two- Cut the bottle into three pieces and duct tape the middle piece to bottle one to increase the length of the rocket to increase stability.
2- Cut a folder into three equal triangles and fold them at the middle to form two right triangles each. Tape them to the bottle to make the fins. Fins help to increase stability!
3- Use a handful of marbles, stick them in a Ziploc bag, and place it in the opening of bottle two. Use the top of bottle two and stick it on top of the opening of bottle two to make it look like a dome on top of the marbles. Tape it to the inside of the rocket! The marbles help to distribute the weight on both ends to increase stability and the dome like bottle part helps to keep the marbles attached to the rocket.
4- To make the parachute, take a small garbage bag and cut it into a square. Tape the corners of the square and the middle of the sides so you have 8 pieces of tape. Repeat so that the tape is on the other side of the bag as well. Use a hole puncher to hole punch the taped area and tie pieces of string to through the hole. The parachute slows down the rocket as it falls and increases the time. Use the ends of the string and tape it to the inside of the rocket.
5- Take a cone and stick model magic clay into the tip of the cone to make a nose cone. The nosecone helps with the stability when it flies!
6- Add water, pump it, and you're set!
(Our diagram!)
Our rocket didn't fly as well as I hoped it was. After we released it, the rocket released water and flew straight into the sky. We wanted the nosecone to fall off as the rocket began to slow down in the air, however the nosecone would usually come off as it was going up. Because it came off earlier, the parachute was released too early, decreasing the amount of time the rocket was in the air. After adjustments such as taking out some marbles, readjusting our parachutes, and adding a little tape to our cone, our longest launch lasted for about 7 seconds.
After so many trials, I felt disappointed in myself that our rocket wasn't staying up for 10 seconds. I felt that we could've done it and it irked me that it wasn't working. After stopping for a few minutes, we decided to try one last time. The last launch gave us 9 seconds!!!!! This lab not only taught me how to make a rocket bottle rocket and what makes it fly so well, but it also taught me to never give up and to just keep on trying. You never know if your next trial can bring you one step closer to your goal. Even though we didn't reach the 10 second mark, it was pretty fun and was a good experience!
Our final product! :)
Rocket Man Women!!
Aleina, my water bottle rocket lab partner, and I built the body of our water bottle rocket from two 2 Liter bottles. We used duct tape to take the outside of one of the bottles to keep the plastic sturdy and we cut up the other one before taping it to the first bottle. The second bottle is where we stored a roll of duct tape, a bag of Goldfish snacks, and a number of quarters to add mass and balance the amount of weight we towards the end of our bottle rocket. We attached a parachute (which was made of a plastic bag, duct tape and string) to the second rocket so when the rocket reaches its peak in height, air resistance will help to keep it in the air longer as it falls back down. The nose cone stores the parachute and was made of a sports drilling cone. The nose cone ensures that as the cone is in the air, the parachute won't come out until it starts to fall. There is play doh to help increase the amount of mass on the end of the bottle rocket to even out amount of mass on both sides. We also attached fins to our rocket to ensure the rocket will be steady.
Our attempt for day 2 wasn't too bad! After every launch, my partner and I tweaked it a bit. Surprisingly, our tweaking actually increased the amount of time every time! We reached our 5 second goal with 5.1 seconds, which might not be a long time for other groups, but gave us hope to continue modifying our project and to trust in Physics!
Unit 8!
Today's lesson was still on work and energy!
This is a picture of my little cousin playing with a stuffed animal. She was tossing it up in the air and catching it! This simple act of tossing the stuffed animal into the air is actually an example of how physics is in the world around me! When tossing the Piglet doll in the air, my little cousin is putting kinetic energy into the doll and the doll is gaining potential energy. Potential energy is the energy an object COULD have and it increases as the height increases. When Piglet reaches the top of its path, he loses kinetic energy and has the most potential energy. But because of gravity, what goes up must come down. As Piglet falls, he begins to gain kinetic energy and lose potential. During the whole toss, the amount of energy there is stays consistent. However, it is either in kinetic or potential energy.
Watts up? (Unit 8)
Unit 8 focuses on Work and Energy. The equation to solve for work is Work = Force x Change in Distance. So for example, if Jon had a mass of 60 kilograms and Aleina pushed him 5 meters at the acceleration of 0.5 meter/second/second in 20 seconds, we can calculate how much work is done. By using the F = ma equation, we can solve for the force first. (60 kg x 0.5 m/s/s = 30 N). After solving for the force, we can use it to solve for work! (30 N x 5 meters = 150 joules).
We can also solve for the amount of power by using the equation Power = Work/Time.
Since we know work = 150 joules and 20 seconds was our given amount of time, we can use that to solve for power. (150 joules/ 20 seconds = 7.5 watts).
Egg Drop Lab!
Today, everyone was really EGGcited to conduct our Egg Drop Lab! For my capsule, my partner and I had a small container (that we completely padded with bubble wrap and cotton balls to cushion it) placed inside a cardboard box. In the cardboard box, we had two foam like cushions, two toilet paper rolls, and one large paper roll on the bottom of the box. The paper rolls were used to take the impact because it crumples when it lands. We filled the rest of the box with crumpled newspaper, bubble wrap, yarn, and plastic bags and used them as a cushion to increase the time. In the equation Change in momentum = Force x Change in time, if you increase the time, it decreases the amount of force on the capsule.
The
forces that were exerted on the capsule are weight force from the
gravity. However, when it hits the ground, there is normal force as
well.
Something that went wrong with our project was that it bounced after hitting the ground and landed on the top (bottom picture) instead of how it was supposed to (top picture). Bouncing increases the amount of force on the capsule. However, we were lucky and the bouncing didn't cause too much damage. Something that I would've done was add something that would crumple to take the impact and weights so the capsule would fall straight and hopefully not bounce.
Baby you're a FIREWORK! (Unit 7)
Law of conservation of momentum states that in a controlled situation, momentum will be conserved, which means that momentum cannot be created nor destroyed. Fireworks are a good example of this law! In a "perfect physics world", fireworks follow a parabola shaped route. And when reaching the top of their route, they explode into a million pieces!! According to the law, if you take the initial momentum of the firework and the total momentum of each piece of the explosion, their momenta will equal each other!
I took this picture while watching the fireworks from last year's Fourth of July event.
Unit 7!
Unit 7 focuses on momentum. Momentum is the force or speed of movement and is the product of an object's mass and velocity. Something important about momentum is that it must be conserved. Important equations we learned are...
Momentum = mass x velocity
Change in momentum (Impulse) = average force x change in time
Momentum (in) = Momentum (out)
(Mass1 x initial velocity1) + (Mass2 x initial velocity2) = (Mass1 x final velocity1) + (Mass2 x final velocity2 )
Some of these equations are helpful in explaining how to successfully toss water balloons without popping them. The picture above is a picture of me and my friend about to conduct a water balloon toss at her birthday party! When tossing a balloon, the balloon can only take a certain amount of force before popping. So in order to decrease the force, we can increase the time. I noticed that the people who stayed in for a while move their hands with the balloon as it fell into their hands. By doing that, they increase the contact time, decreasing the amount of force being exerted onto the water balloon!
