Final Blog Post

What is Physics?
Physics is about motion. The motion of objects, light, and any other matter. It involves everything around us. From lights to colors. Everything around us is physics.

What did you think of the class?
I really like physics. I didn't really know what to expect. I wasn't really sure what physics was, I just knew it was abut motion. Now that I have taken the class, it was a really fun class to take. It explains a lot about every day life stuff like why things have color and about the motion of objects. This class has gotten me more interested in the subject and thinking about taking more classes on physics.

What did you learn in the class?
I learned an extreme amount in the class. I learned too much to put in this blog post, but in the simplest way to put it, I learned physics is not just about motion. It is about everything around us. It is the color of objects. Physics is in car crashes, looking in the mirror, and falling objects. If you really want to know EVERYTHING I was able to learn in the 6 weeks, go back and read my blog. I posted about 28 blog post about what I did and learned everyday. It was an extremely fun time!

What did I like about the class?
I really liked how it relates to so much around us in everyday life. I liked the unit about lights, especially because I didn't expect it. I really liked the labs. They were really fun and interesting to see the physics in action. Mr. Blake was also a very good teacher. He made the interesting stuff really fun to learn and the more boring parts of physics funny and enjoyable. I remember him pretending to be Darth Varder with the red laser pointer during the light unit. I also thought his semi incredible hulk joke was really funny. Thanks Mr. Blake!

What could be modified about this class?
I think one thing that could be fixed is to not do labs on lab practical day. Labs were really fun and all, but it got hard to focus on the lab practical when I was already went through a lab in the morning. Last it to make sure we have the breaks at 10 so we can have some free time and for 15 minutes so we have time to stand up and relax.

Commentary/Feedback?
 Thanks Mr. Blake for a great class! You made the class a lot more interesting and fun for me. You made the class easy to understand and I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer!

Unit 10 Blog Post #3

Today in class, we started but just reviewing what reflection was. After a good review, we moved on to refraction. Refraction is the change in wave speed due to change in medium. The dependent for refraction is medium. A law involving refraction is Snell's Law. Snell's law in a basic equation is N1(sinO1)=N2(sinO2). We use this equation when a light shines through an object and bends. N is the index of refraction. N equals speed of light in a vacuum over speed of light in medium. This is written as N=C/V. When we know an angle of the light going in or out. Two rules we learned for when lights go through objects are:

When moving from slow to fast (medium), light will bend away from the normal.
When moving a fast medium to a slow medium, light will bend towards the normal.

After all that, we did a bunch of questions involving the Snell's law equation. Some problems went through regular object and some through triangle glass blocks making it a little more confusing. Mr. Blake then showed us how to do equations involving lens. He told us about how glasses fix the vision of people who are near or far sighted. We then drew light going through lens and where they reach. We learned two rays involved in these lens. The parallel ray is from the object to optic axis, thru lens and bends thru focal point to other side. The optic axis goes thru the center of the lens in our equations and where the object looking through lens is on.The focal point is from the object thru focal point on the object side thru lens, then parallel. The central ray goes from object thru the center of the lens then continues (no bending).

This is a picture of my friend Grant. Grant is far sighted. That mean the light doesn't reach all the way back of his eye like people who have 20-20 vision. The lens of the glasses get the lights to reach the back of his eye so he can see clear.

Unit 10 Blog Post #2

Today in class, we kept reviewing unit 10. Mr. Blake told us that the reason we can see things because of light. For example, Mr. Blake's shirt was red. When the light hits his shirt, it absorbs all the colors except for red. That red not absorbed reflects off his shirt and to our eyes so we can see his red shirt. Mr. Blake talked about the light in our classroom. In the classroom, the lights shine white lights. White lights shine all the colors. Something fun that we learned is why the sky is blue. The sky is blue because the scattering of the blue wavelengths due to the nitrogen in our atmosphere.  Another fun thing we learned was about the color of ocean. Water likes to absorb lower frequency lights like red, but water is actually clear. Since water is clear and absorbs lower frequency lights, the blue and other colors with higher frequencies get shown. The next item we went over was the Law of Reflection. All angles are relative to the normal. In equation form, angle of incidence equals angle of reflection. We talked about different reflections. When the surface the light is reflecting on flat, then the reflection will be a specular reflection. An example of this is reflecting light from a mirror. You can tell it is flat because the if using a laser pointer then reflections leaves a dot of light. If the surface the light is reflecting on is no flat, then the reflection is a diffuse reflection. An example of this is reflecting light from the Punahou white board. When reflecting a laser pointer light off it, the pointer leaves a wider line reflections.

This is a picture of the sky. We learned about how the sky is blue because of the scattering of the blue wavelengths due to the nitrogen in our atmosphere. This is involving the lights that we talked about in class.

Unit 10 Blog Post #1

Today in class, we started by reviewing for a unit 9 test. We did the unit 9 review in the packet and summarized what we learned last week. After the test, we started unit 10. Unit 10 was about light. Light can't be seen unless it gets to your eyes, but there isn't just one type of light. Different types of lights are ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays. In theory, no object can go faster than the speed of light. The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second. Mr. Blake made us calculate how far light travels in one earth year. This is called a light year. The answer was 9.47 times 10 to the 15th.

This is a picture of a light in my room. I can see the light in my room because the light reaches my eyes. This light is visible light, if it was infrared or ultra violet. I wouldn't be able to see the light.

Unit 9 Blog Post #2

In class today we talked talked more about unit 9. The new vocabulary we learned was reflection, refraction, and dispersion. Reflection is the bouncing waves and refraction is the bending of waves. Dispersion is when waves spread out. To show these terms in real life, Mr. Blake drew out ocean waves. He showed how waves can spread out or bend. Another term we went over is natural  frequency, which is the frequency an object wants to vibrate at. An example is when Mr. Blake drops a meter stick, it makes a sound. The sound it makes is based on its size and mass. Sound is its natural frequency. We also talked about Resonance. Resonance is the increase in amplitude of oscillation of an electric or mechanical system exposed to a periodic external force whose frequency is equal to or some multiple of the natural frequency of the system. The big new topic we talked about is sound. Sound is a mechanical wave traveling through a medium. Sound is a longitudinal wave that needs medium to travel. All frequencies of sound travels at the same speed at the same temperature. Solids travels fastest through solids, next liquids, then gases, last it doesn't travel through no medium. We also learned about sound ranges. We talked about how it goes infra sonic to ultra sonic. We can't here that because the human's ear is 20 to 20 hertz.

This is a photo of a surf spot I usually go to. This picture relates to the lesson because we talked about waves. Sometimes in the water there will be times when the waves die down and the water becomes flat. But if you wait a couple minutes, the waves come back. This is like the term dispersion because the waves in the water are spreading out having different times between each wave.

Unit 9 Blog Post #1

Today in class, we talked about unit 9. Unit 9  was about waves. Waves are disturbances through space or matter, accompanied with transfer of energy.  we started by learning a ton of vocabulary.  We talked about parts of waves like the crest and trough. Another term we learned was amplitude. Amplitude is the distance between the peak of the wave and the equilibrium point. We talked about changing the frequency of the wave. Frequency is how many cycles pass in a second. The unit for this is hertz (Hz). Another term we learned is vibration. A vibration is a wiggle in time and space. Mr. Blake told us that waving to people is just vibrating. That was an interesting truth we learned. Mr. Adams also was able to show us this cool example of a wave. We got to see the nodes and the anti-nodes in the wave and identify loops.

This is a picture of a slinky. The slinky in class was to show an example of waves. In a lab, we had to know over certain object with the slinky, but at the same time try to keep other objects up. The slinky is a very good way to show how a wave looks.

Final Bottle Rocket Blog Post

     What design features were included in your rocket design?

Our rocket used 2 2 liter bottles, duct tape, plastic bag, string, cardboard, and hot glue. the rocket had 2 bottle back to back in each other having the neck of the bottle on both ends. One end we created at parachute to exit out of and the other is where the water would be held. We had three fins, they were used to keep the bottle steady on the way up. The Fins were hot glued and duck taped. The fins did the job for the most part. The parachute, when it worked and deployed, worked well. The parachute had some problems that could have been fixed if we had more time.

Your launch conditions:

We would usually get to around 60-80 PSI. The higher the PSI, it seemed the higher the rocket would go. We got higher psi's by getting Alex and I to pump at once adding more strength to the pump. The amount of water was about half each time. I observed that a little less than half would be most effective. Too much and the rocket would go too low. 

What has this project taught you? 

I learned about air friction. We learned to make it aerodynamic on the way up to get to the highest point, then a parachute to catch the air and slow down the fall. We learned how the force of gravity really pulls down on the object. We learned about acceleration. When the rocket fell it accelerated towards the ground. When the rocket shot up, the rocket accelerated towards the ground causing the rocket to slow down. I learned about techniques to make the bottle rocket have more air time. From seeing other groups and the websites, I found didn't designs for bottle rockets, fins, and parachutes.

Final Thoughts:

The bottle rocket project was an exciting project. It was fun to get out of the class and see physics in the real life. I wish we had an extra day or two to work on our rocket, but I think our rocket did well for the amount of time and thinking we did. Even thought we didn't make ten seconds (we made 7.1 seconds), we did our best and I was happy with out time. 

Bottle Rocket Day 1

Our rocket model fell short of the five second requirement we were supposed to fulfill. Our rocket's times were around three to four seconds, close, but not quite the five seconds we needed. For our rocket we used: 2 2liter bottles, duck tape, string, plastic bag, cardboard, and hot glue. We first cut the top off of one of the 2 liter bottles and taped it to the bottom of the bottle. This created a end/ cone to make the rocket more aerodynamic. We launched that for a 4 second launch. We then added three fins. We made a fin with a height on 14 in. and a width of 8 in. We made them out of cardboard and covered them up with duck tape. We then hot glued the fins on the bottle rocket. We finished securing them by taping them on. The goal of the fins was to make the rocket go up straight, but it didn't seem to make a difference. We then added a plastic bag parachute. The design wasn't properly made to be effective. With the parachute, the rocket had a time of three seconds. Alex and I decided that the parachute we had wasn't working so we decided to remove it and try without the parachute. The rocket got a time of three and a half. Just a little better than the time before. I think that a more effective parachute design will be effective to the rockets air time.

This is a picture of the supplies before we taped the fins on and before we taped on the head of he bottle on. 

This is an picture of of our rocket withe the fins and parachute design. The parachute wasn't big enough and didn't come out enough to be effective to our air time.

Unit 8 Blog Post #2

Today in class, we went over more unit 8 topics. Mr. Blake taught us about power. Power is the rate at which something is done. The equation for power is change energy over change in time. This is simplified to work over time. The unit for power is joules over seconds, also called watts (w). We learned that power is directly related to energy and inversely related to time.

In this picture, there is a light bulb on a lamp. Power in light bulbs is measured by kilowatt hours. Mr. Blake told us that "energy companies" should really be called power companies because the companies supply power no energy.

At the end of class, we worked on our bottle rockets. We got to launch our bottle without any attachments. Alex and I launched the rockets three times. The first time we filled it up a little more than half of water. We launched the rocket went for about 1.5 seconds. Our second rocket we had less water and our rocket went up for about 3 seconds. On our third with less water, our rocket went up for just about 5 seconds. Now we have a general idea how much water to add.

Unit 8 Blog Post #1

For class, we reviewed unit 8 about energy. Energy has magnitude, but no direction making it scalar.We learned about different types of energy. We learned about kinetic, potential, and spring potential energy.

Kinetic Energy is the energy of motion. The equation is  KE= 1/2 x mass x (velocity)2 = 1/2m(v)2. 
Potential Energy is the gravitational energy. The equation is PEg= mass x gravity x change in height = mgh
Spring Potential Energy. PEs= 1/2 x spring constant x (distance the sprig is stretched or compressed)2 = PEs= 1/2k(d)2

We learned that energy is conserved. This is stated in the Law of Conservation of Energy. It says energy cannot be created or destroyed it only changes form.

Of course, we learned about a new graph. The graph we learned was force vs. distance. We learned two rules for it. First, the area under a curve of a force vs. distance graph is work done. Second, the slope of a force vs. distance graph is spring constant. 

This picture is Alex drinking gaterade. Gaterade is a drinking that has cards and electrolytes to give your body energy to work out. This energy times the amount of force he puts into his work out or activity will effect the amount of work he does.

Egg Drop Write up

1. The physics involved in dropping the egg was the force of gravity, which is 9.8 meters per second. There was the acceleration on gravity when the egg fell from the third floor. There was going to be a sudden stop of momentum at the end. When falling there was friction in the air, which reduced the velocity of our system during the fall. Air friction depends on surface area and wind. Our egg wouldn't break because the 3 layers of padding was able to cushion the impact. We also had air between the layers in zip lock bags to increase the impact time. Increasing the impact time helps relieve the impact and do less damage to the egg.

2. When our capsule and egg made impact with the ground, many forces acted upon it. The force of gravity made it accelerate to the ground and make impact. The force of the ground during impact which was the cause of damage. The egg felt less force because the layers and air inside the capsule was able to increase the impact time and decrease the force put on the egg.

3. Our egg was able to survive. There were no cracks in our egg and it stayed healthy. Our designed was successful because we made it to increase impact time. Our capsule had a large surface area so it would be slightly slower because of air friction. Also, in the layer of zip lock bags, we kept air in to be released on impact to increase the impact time. The last design we did to help keep the egg in tact was wrapping the egg and bags in shirts. The shirts would have a little bit of air inside. When it would make impact with the ground, the air would increase the impact time. All these designs increasing the impact time helped keep our egg from breaking.


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After:

Unit 7 Blog Post #7

Today in the second day of unit 7, we reviewed momentum. We turned in our lab activity we did yesterday. Mr. Blake went over it answering questions about the lab activity. We did a physics momentum worksheet. We had to find the momentum of 2 bumper cars before and after they collide. The bumper cars collided in different ways, similar to the collisions in our lab activity yesterday. We then did a lab practical. The lab practical was similar to the lab activity we did yesterday. We got the carts lined up and attached them to each other by the pins. We then got a dart gun and shot sail on top of the cart. This  pushed the cart forward through the photogate. We did that five times and found the average. Right before lunch, we did a water balloon activity. Sparks and I gently threw a water ballon to each other slowly getting farther away. After lunch, we reviewed more momentum problems preparing for the test we have tomorrow. Then we got together with our group to discuss our egg project.

In this picture, Gio, Sparks, and I are doing our lab practical. The momentum of the bullet pushed the carts to pass through the photogate. 

Unit 7 Blog post #1

Today, the first day of the 2nd semester, we talked about unit 7. Unit 7 is about momentum. Momentum is mass times velocity. We use a type of P for the symbol of momentum. The unit for momentum is kilograms meters per second. Momentum is also a vector quantity. An important law we learned for momentum is the Law of Conservation of P. The law states "In a closed system, momentum of a system is always conserved." Momentum is also in force. Force equals change in momentum over change in time or change in momentum equals average force times change in time. Change in time times average force also equals impulse. Impulse is something that changes the momentum in an object.

This is a picture of Jacob, Gio and I working on our lab activity. This lab we tested the momentum of objects when they collided with each other.