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.

Power

In today's lesson we learned about Power.  The equation for Power is change in energy (work) over change in time.  The units for Power is Joules per second or watts.  The definition of power is the rate of which work is done.  In this picture I am running up the stairs in my house.  As I run up the stairs with the same mass (125lbs) in a certain amount of time my power is great or very little.  Power and mass are directly proportional which means that the heavier you are the more Power you have because as the weight increases the Power increases.  On the other hand time is inversely related to power, as the time increases the power decreases.  So in this case the longer it takes me to get up the stairs the less power I have. 

Unit 8- Work and Energy

In Unit 8 we learned about work and energy.  The Law of conservation of Energy is that energy cannot be created or destroyed.  It just changes forms and is conserved.  We learned that there are two types of energy, Kinetic and Potential.  Kinetic is the energy of motion which includes the units mass, gravitational force, and velocity.  Potential energy is the Spring potential energy and can help you determine the distance that the string is stretched or depressed.  The units of Potential Energy are spring constant (k), and the distance that the string is stretched or depressed.  In this picture I took a picture of myself pulling back a sling shot.  The equation that we could use to solve for is Spring Potential Energy because as I pull the spring back the harder it gets to pull.  We could solve for how much work it will take to pull back a rock or an object that weighs a certain amount using this equation or finding the slope of the graph. 

Egg Drop Lab

Post Lab

For the egg drop lab we needed to build and create a capsule of some sort to protect the egg while it's being dropped from the third floor of Bishop. 
We (Cameron and I) decided to build our capsule out of colorful straws.  We decided on using straws and ziploc bags /other light materials to create our capsule because we learned in class that the lighter lower the mass of a certain object which in this case is our capsule, the faster it will reach terminal velocity and the slower it would accelerate.  The straws were important because they were very flexible and allowed there to be an increased contact time with the ground.  When watching the after video today in class we saw that when our capsule hit the ground the straws compressed and clearly increased the contact time to protect the egg from all the force.  Inside we place the egg in a cone shaped object made our of straws.  We then surrounded the cone of straws with crumbled paper.  The purpose of this was to make sure that the egg was safe inside and that it wasn't near any of the surrounding walls that were going to make contact with the ground.  The air filled ziploc bags on the side were there to provide padding or cushion for the egg.  On the top of our capsule we taped a plastic bag to hold everything together causing an increase in air resistance.  We tied a rock (more mass) to the bottom middle of our capsule to make sure that the mass of the rock will lead the capsule to falling straight down on the bottom.  One thing that was very good about the tied rock was the length of the string.  The length of the string was perfect.  If it were to be any shorter then it was it would cause the capsule to tilt or fall on any of the sides.  I feel like we could have surround the other sides with straws just in case the egg didn't drop directly on the bottom.  Other than that I thought our egg drop was perfect and really turned out to be successful.

Damage assessment

When dropped our capsule didn't look like there was much damage to it.  The egg was saved and the capsule worked just how we thought it was.  The straws being flexible increased the contact time and decreased the force that was acted on the egg.

Momentum

Today in class we expanded on momentum.  As of right now my picture isn't cooperating and attaching in this blog post but I will eventually get it up.  Anyways, the picture is of Capri sitting on the round surface with the leaf blower thing attached.  In this picture she is throwing a medicine ball to someone and when she does the round surface that she is on moves back.  This is very similar to the cart air lab that we did yesterday.  The heavier the mass is, when colliding will push the lighter object and the speed/momentum will transfer.  Today when she threw it the same force she used to throw the ball acted the exact same way onto her.  The object was also frictionless so we could see clearly what happens.  We learned an equation today that states that the initial equals the final.  So everything on both sides of the equal sign are the same (equal to each other) which is why when Capri threw the ball she went backwards also. 

Momentum

Today  in class we learned about momentum.  The equation for momentum is momentum (p) = mass(m) x Velocity (v).  In this picture there are two carts on top of an air lab and the whole point of the lab was to watch these two carts (objects) collide together.  Many of the things in real life contain something that relates to physics.  In this specific lesson it's about objects that collide and how the energy or speed gets transferred over from one object to another.  In this picture cart 1 and cart 2 have the same amount of weight on it and one of them is at rest while the other one is set in motion.  While the one in motion collides with the other one at rest the speed/ momentum gets transferred over causing the other one to be in motion.  This lab was so cool and interesting to see how energy and speed transfers over from one object to another. 

Semester 1

This semester had it's ups and down.  There were some stuff I really understood and there were others that were frustrating and hard to comprehend.  Some stuff that we learned in the first semester was Newton's three laws of motion, accuracy and precision, forces in motion, acceleration, friction, and scalar quantities (speed) and vector quantities (velocity).  I liked everything about this physics class.  I like how the labs are very hands on and you can see first hand what's happening instead of just imagining it.  I also really like the way Mr. Blake teaches things.   He really has a positive attitude and when he explains stuff he breaks it down into little steps and makes sure we understand the material before moving on.  Something that is hard for me is the pace of the class.  Instead of doing just one part of a unit in one day (like the school year) we are doing a week worth of work all in just one day so if you get the material but still need some more practice it's kind of hard to keep up.  Other than that I really enjoy this class and I look forward to the rest of the summer. 

Unit 6

Today we expanded more on Newton's second law which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the netforce of an object while the acceleration of an object is inversely proportional to the objects mass.  I took a picture of our note packet that we did today and more specifically the picture of the man in the elevator.  This example matches perfectly with newtons second law and forces with motion.  In this specific example the elevator is moving up at a constant velocity.  The force diagram with include Normal Force for the man and the diagram for the elevator will have tension because it is hanging and being pulled up on a string.  The force diagram with the man contains normal force because he is standing on a flat solid surface.  There are many objects that have to do with Newton's second law so it is important to understand. 

Post #12

Today we expanded more on Newton's three laws of motion.  I decided to take a picture of me standing on the ground.  The third law states that for every force there is an equal and opposite force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.  I think it's cool because not only am I exerting force on the ground it is exerting the same amount of force back up to me.  Something I also thought was super cool was the scale experiment.  Weight always stays the same but the thing that changes in your normal force which is perpendicular to the surface.  I found it super cool how weight was only accurate when the scale was on a flat hard surface. We don't usually think about it but physics occur all around in our daily lives.

Unit 5- Forces of Equilibrium

Today in class we learned about Forces of Equilibrium.  I took a picture of an expo pen on a paper which is one of the experiments we did today.  I always thought that the magic trick with the heavy fragile glass plates on top the table cloth was super cool but now that I understand the physics of it I feel dumb.  I learned that force is a vector quantity which means that it contains both magnitude and direction.  Today we did many problems using trigonometry to solve for direction (x and y axis) and magnitude (muchness, degree).  It is a lot of steps but makes sense.  We learned about the first Newtons Law which is also known as the Law of Inertia that states that an object in motion will tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside unbalanced force.  Which is definitely true is many different senarios.  For example if you throw a baseball in one direction and no unbalanced forces act upon it nothing will happen (wind, gravity, hitter).   I am looking forward to expanding  tomorrow and learning 2 more Newton Law's. 

Unit 4- Projectile Motion

In class we expanded more on Unit 4 Projectile Motion.  In this picture Cameron is launching an Air Rocket in the sky while Bunn, Kelly, and I are waiting to observe and record the data.  The rocket went straight up in the air and then came straight back down.  It went fast, slow, stop, slow, fast and hit the ground.  During this whole process the Acceleration stays the same (9.8 or 10 m/s).  In class we also did a Jose and Pierre experiment and I thought that was super cool how when the object was moving the canon shot the ball out and happened to land inside.  After these two activities I realized how important it is to know physics.  Without even doing something and if your physics is good you can accurately and precisely predict what will happened during an experiment without even conducting one. 

Projectile Motion

Today in class we learned about projectile motion.  This picture is of the lab we did today where we launched a ball out of muzzle and calculated how far it went horizontally and vertically.  I thought it was a super fun activity because it was hands on and it kept me very interested for a long time.  We also did an activity where me and Cameron dove/jumped into the swimming pool and from there we were able to calculate and see on logger pro the slope and other things that happened during the action.  Many things in today's world illustrate projectile motion like bombs being dropped during a war and I think it is important to understand because if something were to go wrong it could be a mess!

End of Quarter 1

In quarter one we learned about a variety of things from acceleration and precision to independent and dependent variables, to qualitative and quantitative data, metric conversions, kinematics (study of motion), speed (scalar quantities) , vector quantities (velocity), to uniform acceleration, the three important graphing rules and many more that almost killed my brain.  My picture above illustrates one of the many lessons we have learned in this past quarter.  The picture on the left illustrates precision which is consistency of measurements (how many times you can hit the same spot).  The picture on the bottom right is an example of accuracy which is the closeness of a measurement to the actual value.  The picture on the top right is an example of low precision and low accuracy because the darts are not even close to the bulls eye and are not even in the same general area.  I enjoyed quarter one and am looking forward to the next three quarters.

Extra Credit

This is a picture of me and my mom reviewing physics and what we have been learning.  I taught her about Kinematics and Uniform Acceleration which means that the Acceleration is the same Acceleration, the formula for acceleration which is the change in velocity over the time.  Then I taught her how to solve some conceptual physics problems cause she didn't understand what the formulas meant so I had to show her.  Last but not least I did the ball trick for her and like everyone else she thought that the larger ball/ heavier one drops faster and it was a pain in the butt to explain to her why it's not but in the end she got it.  Explaining it to my mom was a pain in the butt but was also very helpful because it helped me to understand the information better. 

Post #6

Today in class we learned more about acceleration and learned about Galileo and how he experimented with acceleration due to gravity.  In my picture there is a water bottle and a little stress basketball.  If both objects are dropped at the same height most people will think and say that the water bottle will drop faster and hit the ground first.  Yes, the water bottle may hit the ground first but both the water bottle and the ball are traveling at the same speed (acceleration).  On earth gravity is 9.8 meters per second and every object is traveling are being pulled down the same although it may seem otherwise. 

Here's a link to what people think about falling objects and is relevant to what we learned in class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mCC-68LyZM

UNIT 3

Today is class we learned about Kinematics (Uniform Acceleration) which is the study of the same acceleration.   This is a picture of my sister wave boarding down a slope.  In class we did a very similar activity where two students started at the top of the hill and one skateboarded down and the other sat on a roller thingy.  My sister in this picture did the exact same thing.  She started at the top (without pushing off) and rolled down the hill.  My observations on the time were something very similar to what we all witnessed in class.  Towards the end of the hill she began to somewhat slow down because the ground was leveling out and became flat again.  When we timed it in class it was interesting to see the different relationships between the distance vs time graph (exponential) and the velocity vs time graph (linear).


Here's a link about a snowboarder coming down a steep hill getting faster and faster as he continues down the hill.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFOJyBxkPlI

3rd Physics Post- Velocity v.s. Time

Sorry the picture is like posted side ways cause I have no idea how to take it the other way but today in class we learned about velocity and time.  Yesterday we learned about position vs time.  Position vs time graph tells you where you are at a certain time.  Velocity vs time graph tells you the acceleration which is the change in velocity per unit of time (meters per second).  The graphing rules for this method is the area under the "curve" of a velocity vs time graph is distance traveled.  A real life example of this position v.s. time graph and the velocity vs time graph is motor transportation.  Take a car or a motorcycle for example.  Both these vehicles and majority of the other motor vehicles have a speedometer that tells us how fast the vehicle is going (instantaneous speed).  Along with the speedometer there is an odometer which is the thing that tells us how far we are traveling.  Since a Position vs Time graph test distance in meters per second, we could graph that in a graph and determine the distance per second.  The most important thing that we need to look for in a graph is the slope.  The graphing rule states that in a position vs time graph the slope is the velocity which can then help us to find the velocity which can be used to create a velocity vs time graph to figure on the acceleration of the vehicle.  This is when the graphing rule about the "curve" comes into play. 

Unit 2

Today in class we learned about Kinematics which is the study of motion and how all motion is relative.  In this picture the motorcycle is stationary and is relative to the beach and the ground.  Even though it is stationary it is actually moving very fast if we look at it relative to space.  We also learned about scalar quantity and vector quantity.  Scalar quality is the measurement that has magnitude or in simpler language muchness.  Scalar quality is the distance or speed.  Vector quantity is a value that has both direction and magnitude (muchness).  Vector quantity is displacement and velocity and is how far you are from your starting point.  The difference between Scalar and Vector is that one is just about muchness (speed) (Scalar) and one is about both muchness (speed) and direction (Vector). 

Unit 1

In Unit One we did a lab on Pendulums and observed what kind of factors could vary our data.  First of all what is a pendulum.  A pendulum is a mass swinging from a string or some sort of pivot point that swings with no interference.  I took a picture of Newton's Cradle which is normally used to show and represent momentum and energy.  Instead of dropping one ball and allowing it to act on the others I dropped all the balls at the same time.  All the balls are swinging in the same direction, at the same time, and is completing one period each time (starting and ending in the same place).  There are many factors during this experiment that can vary the results.  For example, how heavy the balls weighs, how high up you drop the ball (how high you pull back),  and the length of the string it is hanging from.  In order to get the most accurate results you need to be consistent when conducting the experiment. 

Here is an example of a type of Pendulum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVkdfJ9PkRQ

Introduction

• My name is Jasmine Mau and I am going to be a senior at Punahou School.  I love to eat, swim/play sports, and watch scary/sad movies.  I speak Hawaiian (not fluent) and English.  

• I have taken Biology, Chemistry, Anatomy Major, Anatomy Minor, and next year I will be taking AP Environmental.

• This past year I took Algebra 2 Trig BCP and this upcoming year I will be taking Pre Calc BCP. 

• Science has always been one of my weaker subjects and most science classes don't really interest me so I'm hoping after this summer I will have a different look on science.  I am a visual learner and the only science class I enjoyed was Chemistry because I could see first hand what happens during a chemical change or something by doing a lab.  
•  
• My picture is of me swimming.  I put a picture of me swimming because it is an important part of my life.  For anyone who plays sports or have an extracurricular activity that they are strongly involved with will know that it is very time consuming and requires you to put in all the energy you have to be the best you can be.  To me swimming is that thing.  I swim competitively for the Kamehameha Swim Club and during ILH season I represent Punahou.  I started swimming when I was 5 years old at the YMCA and started competitive swimming when I was 8.  For me, swimming is a love hate relationship.  Last year I missed qualifying for the 2012 Olympic Trials by 3 one hundredths of a second (.03).  It was super depressing and a frustrating time in my life but from that experience I have learned a lot about myself and persevered and kept going.  Throughout these 9 years of swimming  I have learned so much.  I have learned how to manage my time, be dedicated, persevere, be humble, work ethic, and much more values that are also important to survive in the game of life.  You're always going to get knocked down or faced with a barrier but it's the ones who stand up and continue on who win in the end.