What I learned in Semester 1...

During this first semester in physic’s class, I’ve learned way more than I even imagined possible and I think I’ve done pretty alright in this class. Going into physics in the beginning of the year (and most of quarter 1) was nerve-racking because I never really was good at any science class and having physics junior year sometimes really stressed me out. After surviving this class for a whole semester and getting a relatively good grade in it, I have proved to myself that if I put my mind to something…I can do it with my best effort. Since I know science isn’t my strong subject, I always try to take a little more time with the homework and studying since I know I need the extra help. Also from this first semester, I realized that physics is WAY more interesting than chemistry and biology since we’re dealing with things that I can actually see. The demonstrations help me understand what actually goes on, unlike chemistry where I can’t see anything. I think the main reason I’ve enjoyed physics so far this year though would have to be because of Mr. Blake. Personally, how much I like a teacher really determines how well I do in that class. Not to be mean, but I’m glad I didn’t get any other physics teacher because I know I wouldn’t have done as well…that I know for a fact. So all in all, this first semester in physics has opened my narrow-minded thinking and now I see things in a whole other perspective.

Energy of Motion

Egg Drop Reflection

For my physic’s blog post this week, it’s going to be about our egg drop experiment. To start off, this was a hard task considering the fact that my partner and I have never done one before. We spent hours in Target and hours at home trying to prepare and put together different items in hopes of protecting our egg. In this picture, you can see what our experiment looked like after the drop. Our egg sadly broke as a result of the fall. It’s hard to see, but the egg definitely, full-on, cracked. To protect our egg, we used 5 bags of bubble wrap and then stuffed the inside with timothy hay (the kind of hay rabbits eat). We thought that the thick padding of hay would absorb all the momentum from the drop but we were proved wrong. We were sad that our design failed because we spent a lot of time thinking about it, including going back to Target and test dropping it off their fire exit ladder at 9 at night. Although we may have not gotten the extra five points, I learned that there’s way more simpler ways to protect the egg…including just two pieces of foam with a rubber band holding the egg in the middle. I liked this experiment because I hadn’t done one like it before and it made me think outside the box. 

Impulse

                  

This week for my physics blog, I’m going to talk about impulse. Impulse is also known as the change in momentum and is directly related to how much force/momentum one feels after the collision. The more force that’s applied to another object, the greater the change in momentum and vice versa. Impulse can be calculated as I = (F)(Δt) where “I” equals impulse, “F” equals force and “Δt” equals change in time. My picture displays impulse because these karate kids display a greater amount of impulse because they went from rest to punching the air very hard. Although you can’t really see it in the picture, both their hands and legs have moved from a resting position. 

Inertia in Motion

For my blog post this week, I took a picture of my friend at a mini-golf place we went to this weekend. I think this picture shows an example of momentum because with the golf club, he has to create the right amount of momentum needed to get the ball into the hole. The mass of the ball is very light and since he’s not that far away from the hole, he could either risk it and hit it so it has a fast velocity, or he could try and tap it with a small velocity to see if that would work. I can’t remember, but I think he tapped it with a small velocity, but the momentum of the ball became perfect so it landed right in the hole.

Momentum

Without looking at a dictionary definition, I define momentum as the “muchness” of something. I always think it has something to do with magnitude, but after actually researching the definition, I found it’s kind of like it…but at the same time completely different. Momentum is defined in the dictionary as the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of mass and its velocity. To me this basically means the speed of a moving object and how powerful the speed of that object is. Also, I concluded that the equation would have to be M (momentum) = m (mass) x v (velocity). This is the equation you would need if you wanted to find any of these three. 

Static Equilibrium

For my physics blog this week, I took a picture of cars moving on the freeway when I was going out to the Waipio soccer field. Although it’s not a perfect example of this vocabulary world, I feel that in this picture it could resemble “static equilibrium.” Static equilibrium means that it’s a stationary object that’s not accelerating. In this picture basically all the cars are going about 55-60 mph (which is the speed limit.) This means that for the whole stretch of the freeway, the cars are basically in static equilibrium, especially because of the fact that there’s no traffic at this time. 

UH Gameeeeee

            The picture that I chose this time was one of a UH fan running in a referee fat suit holding two pumpkins during a relay race they had during half time. This picture relates to what we’re learning in physics because it’s an example of Newton’s Second Law of Motion, which the acceleration of an object is inversely proportional to the mass of the object. As you can see, the runner is wearing an oversized costume while holding two large pumpkins that makes their usual mass increase. That’s why during the relay both of the competitors weren’t running as fast as they probably could because of the increased mass. 

Force and Motion

My picture shows the Kamehameha football playing against Punahou this past Saturday at Aloha Stadium. This was only one of the many plays that led our Warriors to victory against the Puns! Yay! Well, anyways this picture shows an example of what we’re learning in physics, which is force and motion. This picture is an example of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “The Law of Action Reaction” which states for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every Kamehameha football player that went up against their Punahou opponent, the Punahou players would in return go up against Kamehameha to try and stop them. This picture shows two football players, one Kamehameha and one Punahou, trying to stop each other from getting to their destination, therefore creating an equal and opposite reaction against one another. 

Simple Vector

My blog shows a picture of a vector that I drew on my physics folder. This shows an example of a vector since of course, it’s an arrow and it has both magnitude and direction. This vector is pointing in the northwest direction, meaning if you break it up (bureku) it will be so many degrees north of west. Meaning, it will be that many degrees north of the x-axis on the west side. I’ve learned that different vectors have different magnitudes depending on the size of it and what direction it’s headed in. Vectors aren’t always arrows though; they could be flags on the flagpoles, cones on the road or even a car. All of these things have a certain magnitude (speed) and are going or directing things in a specific direction. 

Sad Loss

The picture that I took is of the football goal posts at the Aloha Stadium. I think that these show vectors because they both have magnitude and are indicating a certain direction. For example, the football has to go through these goals posts in order for the team to score a point. An example of this would be the Kamehameha vs. Punahou game this Saturday. All Kamehameha needed to win was a field goal of three points, but we weren’t able to do that. The goal posts have a direction pointing upwards even though the ball has to go through the posts. Their direction is also upwards even though there aren’t any arrows to indicate it. 

Vectors

The picture that I took was from a sign on the highway when I was driving to Kaneohe. This shows an example of a vector since a vector is something that shows both direction and magnitude. This specific vector is facing downwards since it’s pointing to a sign directing people in the lane I was in to continue in a straight path. In the picture are actually two vectors, and this relates to what we learned as well about determining whether two vectors are equal because since they are pointing in both the same direction and they are the same size, they are equal vectors. 

Jumping For Joy

This picture shows an example of kinematics because my friends are jumping up with a certain velocity and eventually coming back down with the same velocity they jumped with. Just like in my other blog post, there is a point in time during a jump that your velocity becomes zero due to the gravity factor. If there were no gravity then when we jumped we would never come back down, but since there is, we do come back down but for a split second we are frozen in the air. Also I can tell that my friends are coming down with the same velocity (just in the opposite direction) as they jumped up with because they are starting and stopping at the same level. Just like the volleyball lab we did the other day, after throwing and catching the ball from the same level, we got a pretty accurate reading of its velocity, acceleration and distance. 

Velocity of 0

My picture is one of my dad jumping the highest he could go in a bounce house. This shows an example of kinematics because he’s jumping up with a specific velocity, and when he comes down, he’s returning with the same velocity that he started with. There’s a point in his jump where he’s at a velocity of zero just like when we throw an object in the air. If you take a rock for example, if you throw it up at a velocity of 10 m/s, it’s going to return to the same spot you threw it from at the same velocity (just like bullets do when people shoot them in the air at celebrations). But there’s also a point when the rock reaches a certain point and for that split second, the velocity of it is zero. Just like the rock, my dad isn’t going to be at a velocity of zero for a long time, but during that time frame he is. Also being still for a little while allows for a picture to be taken without becoming blurry. 

Velocity

My picture is of the St. Louis football team running out at the start of the Kamehameha vs. St. Louis football game. This shows an example of velocity because this whole team of football players is running at a fast speed in a certain direction. We learned about the difference between velocity and speed this week, and although this picture exhibits speed, it describes what velocity means because these football players are heading in a specific direction; towards the middle of the field. There is also one man in the middle of the picture (probably one of the coaches) who is heading in the opposite direction of the football players with a different velocity. First of all, he’s heading towards the touchdown zone and he’s not running. The football players may be running at a speed of 25 mph because their so hyped up, but he seems to only be going 3 mph.   

Kinematics

This picture I took shows many example of kinematics. I took this at the UH Volleyball game this past Friday when they played University of San Francisco. I took this picture of one play in the game, where UH won the point. Each volleyball player who hits the ball in this play displays kinematics. For one, that volleyball is going many meters per second, but I’m not too sure how fast…it’s just fast. Velocity is defined by how fast something is going and in which direction, and this play can show that the volleyball is going fast in the direction towards their opponent’s net. After researching how fast volleyballs usually travel, the average is about 70mph for the professional players (when they serve the ball), so that means the volleyball in this picture was traveling at a speed of about 31 meters per second if you convert it into the SI unit for speed. 

Unit of Measurement

As you can tell, the picture that I took was of a 12-inch ruler. I chose to take a picture of this because it's one of the many tools that are useful in our everyday lives. Rulers can measure inches, centimeters and even millimeters. This relates to our unit that we’re working on because it since the unit has to do with measurement and different types of units; a ruler fulfills both of these requirements. This relates to the experiment we just did because instead of using a meter stick, we could have used a ruler to do our measurements since 1 meter equals about 3.2 feet. It just would’ve taken a lot longer. 

Blogpost #1

My name is Rachelle and one of my favorite things to do is spend time with family and friends. It may sound cliché, but whether it’s going to the mall, movies or beach I always have a great time with them. So far in science I have taken biology and chemistry and my average would probably be a B. I think that’s good for me considering science is definitely not my strong subject. This year I am taking Honors Algebra 2 and hopefully it’ll help me with calculations in Physics. In completing this course, I hope to look back on it and say that I learned a lot and I had fun at the same time. I think Physics is the most interesting out of the three main science courses just because it deals with everyday life. In my picture I’m with my dog that we just recently had to give away. I think this photo represents my belief that you shouldn’t take anything for granted because you never know when it won’t be yours anymore. It goes to show that what you have may not always be yours so you should make the best of what you have when you have it. (: