Final Physics Blog Post

• What is physics?

Physics is everything.  It is all around us whether we see it or not.  It is something that needs to be understood to predict what will happen to objects before it actually happens.  

• What did you think about the class? 

The class was great.  I'm not really a science person therefore I was going into the class not knowing anything.  I came out of the class happy that I took the course because the teacher made it fun to learn the not so much fun material.  I thought Mr. Blake did an awesome job teaching each unit and relating it to something in real life and incorporating music and songs to help us grasp the material better. 

• What did you learn in the class?

I learned a year worth of physics in just 6 weeks.  I learned that physics is all around you.  Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.  I also learned that if you understand these simple/logical materials you will be able to predict what will happen in certain situations.  

• What did you like about the class?

I loved the teacher.  Mr. Blake was awesome and was really funny.  I liked the way he made this hard material easy and fun to learn.  The way he incorporated music and had some funny demonstrations turned the summer school class from stressful to relaxing and awesome.  There wasn't one day I wasn't looking forward to learning.  

• What could be modified to improve on the class? 

I think everything was great.  It was an enjoyable six weeks for me. 

• Commentary/Feedback?

Thank you so much for a wonderful summer.  This was probably the most fun I ever had learning a lot of difficult confusing material in a while.  I hope I encounter more teachers like you in the future.  

Unit 10 Continued

In Unit 10 we expanded more on light and rays.  Today we learned about diffuse reflection also known as irregular reflection and a Regular/specular reflection.  A diffuse reflection also known as irregular reflection is the rough or bumpy surface of an object.  An example of diffuse reflection is a table top because table tops are not smooth, they are bumpy.  A Regular/Specular reflection is when light comes in and bounces off or strikes back at you or an object depending on where you are.  An example of a regular/specular reflection is a mirror because the surface of a mirror is flat and smooth.  In the first picture at the top there is a faded rainbow.  We learned today that rainbows are always the opposite of where the sun is sitting or where it sets.  I thought that was cool.  The second picture is of the bright blue sky.  Many people think the sky is blue because it is a reflection of the ocean but it's because there is a scattering of lower frequency/wavelengths in the sky.  The ocean is blue because it absorbs the lower wave lengths and lower light frequencies.  The last picture is a picture of an experiment we did in class.  We were observing different types of light behavior. 

Unit 10 - Light Behavior

In Unit 10 we learned about light behavior.  The equation to find the velocity is the velocity (speed) equals to 3 X 10^8 m/s.  Important things to remember about light is that unlike sound, light does not need a medium to travel through.  There are two main light waves that we heard about before and they are Electromagnetic waves and Electromagnetic Spectrums.  Electromagnetic waves are traverse waves and include two parts of the wave which include magnitism waves and electric waves.  Electromagnetic Spectrums are all different ranges of frequencies of electric magnetic waves.  The higher the frequencies of a wave equals a higher frequency.  The top two pictures are a sort of light source.  The first one is a single light bulb at the cafeteria and the second one is of two florescent light bulbs that are bigger than a bulb.  The third picture is a picture of ROYGBIV which is the colors.  R stands for red, O stands for orange, Y stands for yellow, G stands for green, B stands for blue, I stands for indigo, and V stands for Violet.  On the R side of the spectrum of light there is low energy and on the V side of the spectrum there is higher energy. 

Unit 9- Sounds

What is a sound?  A sound is a vibration that causes a longitudinal wave.  In order for the longitudinal wave to transfer through there needs to be  medium which is the material that the wave is in.  There NEEDS to be a medium in order for the sound wave to transfer through.  One of the main factors that can change sound waves is temperature.  When the temperature is colder the sound particles travel faster and when the temperature is hot the sound particles travel slower.  In Unit 9 we learned about two things that are importantly related to sound waves and they are resonance and pitch.  Resonance is the increase of amplitude of a system exposed to a force at an objects natural frequency so in other words it is the vibration of an object.  Pitch is the frequency of sound which is how loud and clear the sound is. 

Unit 9- Waves

In today's unit we learned about wavelengths and other types of things you can see while watching the wave.  Today we did multiple slinky labs where we could see what happens while the slinky is moving and we could identity certain things that take place during the action.  This picture is a picture of me at home on the phone.  The cord of the phone is like the slinkys we played with in class.  I am standing approximately two meters away from the base of the phone which would probably cause me to have a slower wave speed.  If I move further away from the phone base to grab something from the fridge on the left of my I am increasing the tension of the cord and therefore will have a higher/faster wavespeed.  The tension and the wave speed is directly proportional because as the tension increases the wave speed also increases.  Something to remember from this unit is that tension is a huge factor that can keep you from getting solid results in this lab.  The more tension, the faster the speed of the wave.  The less tension the slower the speed of the wave. 

Post Rocket Launching Lab (Jasmine and Kelly)

For our rocket, we used a variety of supplies to create a successful launch.  These materials included the top half of a bottle (used for the nose), the body of another bottle (used for the portion that held the parachute), and one full bottle (used as the portion of the rocket where the water was contained).  For the fins we used manilla folder paper. For our parachute we used a plastic garbage bag (36.5  inches in diameter) along with 12 38-inch pieces of string to connect it to our rocket.  Today we wanted to experiment with different ways to improve our rocket time.  Instead of using the top half of the bottle as our cone like we did yesterday, we decided to use a small athletic cone.  We decided to use a cone because it was what our previous plan was. However, after the launch we realized that it wasn't as successful as our launch with the bottle top.  The cone was too loose on the ground and was not coming off in the air... causing the parachute to not deploy.  

Regarding the fins, instead of just using paper we decided to put cardboard into the each fin to make it heavier and not as flimsy... increasing the stability.  After multiple launches we decided that using the cardboard in the wings was very successful.  The way we folded the parachute also made a huge difference on our launch results.  Strangely, when we didn't fold the parachute neatly it deployed at the right time and went exactly how we planned. 

For our highest launch, the psi had to be way higher than what we had it at. Instead of a psi of 20, we learned that a higher psi would get our rocket to soar for at least 10 seconds. Our final psi was 68.  The amount of water that we used was also very important. Yesterday, we were estimating the amount of water that we should put into our rocket. This morning, we started with a little over half of the bottle. However, it was unsuccessful leading us to realize that the lower the amount of water, the better. We decided to go with a third of the bottle filled with water. When we did this, we could pump more air into the water, increasing the water pressure. This was one of the most important factors in how high up our rocket flew.

We learned that in order to have a successful rocket you need to  have balanced masses on the top and on the bottom.  Not too much mass but not too little.  Air resistance played a huge role in our rocket launching  so in order to reduce air resistance we used the top half of a bottle as a stable nose cone.  Other things that we learned included working together and following directions! Working together was vital to our successful rocket. If we had not worked together, there would’ve been too many ideas being thrown around and we wouldn’t have been able to build a successful rocket. Along those lines, if we had not followed directions, building this rocket would’ve been chaotic because we’d be trying to figure out the best approach to things. 

This project was super fun and cool.  Kelly and I were stoking and were determined to get the longest rocket in the air but we didn't and that's cool too.  We tried our best and had a lot of fun launching and watching everyone's rocket.  I had so much fun and am really happy the way our individual group results turned out and also our classes.  YAY!

Pre Rocket Lanuch

Today was the first day to put together our rocket.  In this picture I am holding our almost finished rocket.  We used one and a half bottles for the body and the base and one fourth of another one as a temporary cone for today because we didn't have a cone.  On our first trial our rocket was in the air for 8.9 seconds.  I thought that was a very good sign because the minimum for today was just to make 5 and our rocket exceeded by quite a lot.  On the second trial our rocket lasted in the air for about 4 and a half seconds.  This was because our parachute didn't deploy and instead of the rocket coasting down it fell super fast.  Some of the things we could fix is probably the fins.  Paper is really light and it isn't going to do much so we are going to replace it with card board.  The top one fourth of the bottle is going to be replaced with a cone because it will fit better on the top.  I am really excited to see how our final launch is gonna turn out and I hope it is better with all of our changes.