Last Post...AUWE!

   Last post. Never thought I would be this sad that summer school is actually over. I learned so much during these shore six weeks. According to Google physics is, "a branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy". From these six weeks I can say that definition is correct. We studies a lot about energy and matter, but we also covered other things, such as lights and vectors. This probably goes in to one of the energy and matter categories, but it is such a big part of physics that it should be in the definition too. 
   To me this class was amazing, I had so much fun. In the beginning everything was a little scary because it was all new. Now that tomorrow is our last day I can definitely say that this has been on of the best classes I have ever been in. The best part is I actually learned things, normally if you have a really fun teacher or really good class you don't learn as much. However with Breaku as our teacher I know that the entire class learned a whole lot more than we expected.
   This class has taught me so much, it taught me I can multitask (tumblr and listening to Breaku at the same time), it taught me all about the amazing physics world, but it also taught me that I actually like science. Of course I learned about physics, I can probably never look at anything ever again without thinking, "oh look the light is reflecting back to my eye so I am able to see that object". I also probably won't be able to drive anywhere without thinking about how I am accelerating, whether it is forwards or backwards. However what I really think I am going to get out of this class is that science isn't all horrible. Since I haven't had the best experience with it I was happy that I was able to enjoy this class. 
   What I really liked about the class was the way our class days were set up. We would learn something and in my head I would be thinking, what I don't get this, then we would immediately do a lab to show that we understand and this actually helped me see what we were supposed to have already learned and put it into action. To make it even better the labs were not at all just boring data collecting, we skateboarded, shot rockets, played with lasers, it was awesome! In my mind this class is pretty awesome and does not really need much improvement. If I had to think of something I would say bring the keiki around more, and perfect the Inception button skills. 

Funnest Lab EVER!

   Basically to sum it all up, I am really sad this class is done. I wish that we could go another week, just not have to wake up early, have class at the beach, and no long days. I really enjoyed this class and all of the people in it. I must say our class did get quite close but you cannot help it when your stuck in the same room with 20 other kids for 144 hours. I loved this class and although I am sad it's over, boy am I FREAKING happy for a real summer. 

Unit 10: Refraction.

   Today was just learn, learn, learn. First we learned about flat mirrors, we learned there were things called real images and virtual images. A real image is when the light converges at one point, therefore it can be focused. A virtual image is when there is no converging, like when you look at your self in a mirror. There are also upright images and inverted images, these are somewhat self explanatory, upright is when it looks the same and inverted is when it is upside down.
  Next we learned about what happens when we have curved mirrors, well the light will bend. We learned that the index of refraction is equal to the speed of light in a vacuum (3x10^8 m/s) divided my the speed of light in the medium. Oh by the way, refraction is the change of direction of a wave due to changes in wave speed because of changes to the medium. We also had to know some indexes of refractions, such as vacuum=1, air=1, water=1.33, glass=1.5 and diamonds=2.42. We also learned that the larger the index of refraction the slower the speed of light in that medium. If the light is going from a fast medium to a slow one the ray will move towards the normal, if it going from slow to fast it will move away from the normal. (The normal is a perpendicular line to the surface). Oh I almost forgot, there are these things called converging lenses and diverging lenses. A converging lens makes the light go together, while a diverging one makes it spread out. Basically this is what we learned today...OH WAIT! Most important thing, called Snell's Law. The index of refraction of the first ray times the sin of the first angle will equal index of refraction of second ray time sin of second angle.

This is when Mr. Blake was playing with a curved mirror and lasers.

Unit 10: reflection and cool lasers

   Today was fun, we got to play around with lasers. We learned about the electromagnetic spectrum, that is a way to organize different types of light waves. The one with the lowest frequency and longest waves is radio waves, next is microwaves, then infa-red, visible spectrum (colors), UV rays, x-rays then finally gamma rays. We looked more at the visible spectrum which consists of colors, ROYGBIV. The primary light colors are red, blue and green. This got really confusing because it is all different than painting colors. Mr. Blake shot some lasers around the room to show us how we cannot actually see the path of the laser just the start and end points. However when he sprayed "Cancer in a Can" it put stuff in the air and we were able to see the path. He then projected red on the white board and he would add green. This made the board yellow, when red was mixed with blue it made magenta. Finally when green was mixed with blue it made cyan. When all of them were mixed it made this off white color, it should have made white but not all the frequencies were the same. Mr. Blake then stood infront of the white board blocking one color at a time. This made a shadow or an absence of light. 

Mr. Blake with his blue and green shadows.

   Next we learned about reflection, this is where I got really confused. There is a law that says the the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection but only when relative to normal. There are also two types of reflections, specular and diffuse. A specular reflection is when the image is the same as the object, this takes place when the foundation is smooth such as a mirror. Diffuse reflection is when the light spreads out, like on the white board.

Unit 10: ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES.

   Today for 15 minutes we started a new lesson. It is on electromagnetic waves, and IT IS OUR LAST LESSON! Basically electromagnetic waves are transverse waves that travel at the speed of light (3x10^8 m/s). A light year is the distance light travels in one earth year. We are going to treat light like a wave even if it also acts like a particle. To see an object light must reflect back from the object to your eyeball. Then we got some key terms, one is transparent. This is when the light wave is able to pass through the object. Another is opaque, this is the opposite of transparent and is when the waves do not go through.
   An example of this is car windows. You can see through them meaning they are transparent to light. However if you have your car window up than you will not get tanned from the UV rays, meaning that it is opaque when it comes to UV rays. 

My dad's car window.

Unit 9: More waves!

   On friday we learned about sound waves, this was an easy concept to grasp because it was all about listening to the different pitches. We did a lab that had to do with tuning metal object things and finding the right wave length to make is resonate. This was somewhat hard because each tuning metal object had a different frequency and that means they had different wave lengths. We could tell it was resonating when the sound got louder. We were then able to see that the wave speed of all the different frequencies were actually the same because the wave speed will only change if the temperature changes. Therefore the higher the frequency the higher the wave length, and the lower the frequency the lower the wave length. We then went on to learn that sound travels slower than light does. Light waves are instant while sound waves take longer to travel. This made me think of Fridays when the fireworks go off, from my house we can see them and if the wind is right we will hear them too. However we hear it way after the show is over.

Even after the show is over, we can still hear the fireworks going off.

Unit 9: Waves!

   Today we learned about waves, there are more than just the kind at the beach. There are sound waves, light waves, radio waves etc. A wave is defined as a transfer of energy in space and time. We then had a little vocabulary lesson on words that related to waves such as: wave length, wave speed, frequency, constructive interference and destructive interference. Most of these words were really straight forward. The two definitions I think are really important are transverse wave and longitudinal wave. A transverse wave is when the energy and the motion are perpendicular, while a longitudinal wave is when they are parallel. Next we did this cool slinky lab where we had to use waves to try and hit some blocks but not others. It was confusing until you got the hang of it, then it was easy-peasy. We ended the day learning how to graph constructive and destructive waves. This was really confusing but I think I understand because of Brandon and Mr. Blake, who were kind enough to act it out.

Observing the slinky lab.

Brandon and Mr. Blake acting it out.

 

Me at Sherwoods running away from the waves.

  When I thought of waves in real life the first thing I though about was the ocean, this didn't seem like it would have anything to do with physics. Then I thought about what Mr. Blake said in class, the waves on the beach are waves. They can be measured just like sound waves, using the amplitude. This is the measurement from the equilibrium to the highest point, the crest or the lowest point, the trough.

5.4.3.2.1...

  6 SECONDS, THATS ALL! Obviously we did not make it to 10 seconds. However we did manage to past yesterday when it was hard for us to get to 5 seconds. Basically our bottle was made of two different 2 liter bottles. We cut one of them in half and taped the bottom of it to our other bottle. We then added on two fins, these were different than yesterday. They were made out of manila folders and were bigger than our cardboard box ones. We also decided to make smaller fins to go on the top of our rocket. At home Amber had made a new parachute because our other one was to small. She also added a rubber band to make it more schock resistant. Finally we used a cone from when my dad used to coach soccer, it had some holes in it so we were wondering if it would work better or worse than our solid orange cone. We also added a weight onto the top of our nose cone to add some mass. When the cone fell so would the weight so that the rocket would be lighter when the parachute deployed. We did a couple launches and realized that we needed to change some things. For our final rocket we used the original base, the bottle and a half taped together, and our second parachute. However we changed the fins, the weight and nose cone. We took off the two smaller fins and cut the bigger fins because they were so large that it was actually harder for our rocket to get a lot of air. The weight on the nose cone did not seem to be working well so we moved it to the actual rocket. This also didn't seem to be helping so finally we just did not use it. We also decided against the cone with holes in it because the parachute didn't deploy because it would get caught in the holes, so we used the solid orange cone.

Our rocket!

   I think that what really helped us get to 6 seconds was our parachute. Although it did not always deploy at the right time when it did it added lots of seconds to our time. I feel that the reason we didn't get 10 seconds was because we were not able to get our rocket high enough. If it had gone higher the parachute would have deployed and therefore taken longer to come back to the ground. During this activity I learned a lot, not all about physics but a lot anyway. I learned that it is really hard to build a rocket, let alone to build one so that is stays in the air for 10 seconds. I also learned that parachutes are really important, they help your rocket stay in the air for longer and make the landing easier so that your rocket doesn't get busted every time you launch. Some physics related things I learned was that the water acts as fuel and therefore when the water runs out the rocket will stop accelerating. With that said it is important to launch your rocket before your water starts leaking out. Finally I learned that this is a super frustrating lab and some times you cannot always do perfectly.

Amber &I with our rocket and parachute!

Our rocket, parachute and cone!

It aint rocket science.

   Today we started to practice launching our modified rockets. My group decided that we were going to test after each thing we added to our bottle that way we could understand what helped and what did not. We started the day by cutting another bottle and taping it to our original bottle. We went and tested this, it was about 3 seconds, and we needed 5. We had our work cut out for us. Next we decided we needed to add some fins, because we had no construction-like paper we used a cardboard box. I cut two identical fins and placed them near the base of our rocket. We also felt that we would want a parachute so we took a longs bag and attached string to it. We then taped the string to the top of our rocket, we got a cone and placed it on top to make an aerodynamic nose cone. Our idea was that the cone would fall off in mid air so that the parachute could deploy and then have it take longer to have our rocket touch the ground. When we did this we were able to get 5 seconds. However for tomorrow we need ten seconds, so we got some new ideas. Our parachute needs to be bigger than just part of a longs bag, also we need to make our rocket have more mass. Hopefully after making these modifications the rocket will work tomorrow.

our rocket, minus the cone and parachute.

Unit 8: WERK IS GUUURL(:

   Today was so much fun. Finally we got to shoot off our bottle rockets. I am honestly small kine worried for tomorrow because our bottle rocket did not stay in the air for long at all. We need to have 5 seconds in the air, thank goodness we get to make some modifications. Today we also did a lab about power, or the amount of work per unit of time. In this picture below Amber and I are running towards the slip-in-slide. She was running faster than I was so her time was less. Her mass is also greater than mine and therefore her power was greater as well. An important equation that I learned today was that to find power starting with mass, distance and time you must first find force by multiplying mass and gravity. Then multiply that by distance to get work, finally dividing that by time to get power.

Unit 8: DO WORK SON!

   We are on to a new lesson, this one is about work and energy. In the physics world the term work is a little different then I thought it was going to be. Work is any change in energy, it equals the force multiplied by the distance, the units for work are called a joule. Like momentum there is also a Law of Conservation of Energy, it states that energy cannot be created or destroyed it will only change forms. To make matters even more confusing there are different types of energy. There is gravitational potential energy which is the energy an object has due to its position in a gravitational field. Then there is kinetic energy, that is the energy of motion. Finally there is Spring Potential Energy, this one is the most confusing. While learning about springs we learned about the elastic limit, or the most a spring can stretch before it is deformed. Lastly there is power or the rate at which work is done, and its units are called watts.

   This is a picture of my family at Alamoana beach. We had to stand there and hold up those boards, at somewhat of an awkward back angle, for quite some time before we finally got a nice picture. To me it felt like a lot of work because the board was heavy and it was not a comfortable position. However in the physics world I was doing no work, because I was not moving. If I had been carrying the board to go jump in the water then I would be doing work because I would be covering some distance.

Humpty Dumpty...sat on the third floor of bishop?

Today was our egg drop day, Brandon and I were partners and guess what...OURS SURVIVED! Our design was actually quite simple. It involved three car washing sponges, some fishing line, a circular sponge-like thing and a big bag of packing peanuts. We put the egg into the circular sponge-like thing then stuck it in the middle of the tree car washing sponges. We made a triangular shape and wrapped fishing line around them to hold it in place. Then we put this whole thing into a safeway bag full of packing peanuts then wrapped duct tape around the bag. Finally we put very small holes in the bottom of the bag so that air could go through the capsule. This is a drawing of our project.

I am not a good drawer.

I think that this worked because of physics, we were able to make the contact time longer therefore the force is less. We managed to make our design light so that it reached its terminal velocity faster. There were two forces acting on our capsule, these were weight or gravity and air friction. Here is a force diagram of our capsule.

Force Diagram

Plan of our capsule

Some things that we could have changed is the bag that we put it in. When the bag was being dropped some of the peanuts fell out. I do not think this really effected it but we could have sealed the bag better so it would be less clean up after. Also when it was falling the bag actually hit the railing. Basically I think that it worked best because we were able to use only soft items that would not damage our egg. By using soft items the weight of the capsule was less making the terminal velocity happen faster. One thing that confused me was that at the bottom it did bounce. When we did equations the bouncing always made the force more therefore when I saw it bounce I assumed that egg would have cracked. If I was to redo this I would make it so that the capsule would land with no bounce.

Final Product

Proud Brandon with our capsule.

The circular sponge-like thingy with our egg.

More Momentum!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY Y'ALL(:
On this lovely independence day physics was all around us, even in the fireworks. Remember the problem we did in class about a rock breaking into 3 different pieces going 3 different ways? That is kinda what a firework is, it starts as one piece and when it reaches its highest point it explodes into lots and lots of little pieces that go all over the place. If it was possible to collect all the little pieces from a firework and calculate their momentum it would add up to the momentum from before it burst into lots of pieces. These pieces are all going in different directions, have different masses and different velocities. Because momentum equals mass times velocity if a piece has a large mass it will have a small velocity, and vice versa. Basically the "Law of Conservation of Momentum" is true because the amount of momentum that goes in equals the amount that comes out. So I hope that when everyone was watching the gorgeous fireworks they were thinking of how much it relates to physics, cause I was.

Unit 7: Momentum

Today we learned about momentum, it is funny that I couldn't even define it yet I have used this word for most of my life. The definition is a property of a moving body, and it is equal to the product of the body's mass and velocity. Momentum is a vector quantity and it's variable is "p". We also learned about a law called the "Law of Conservation of Momentum", this means that the momentum that goes in will be the same amount that comes out.
We did an activity that involved throwing water balloons and we found out that the best way to make them not break is to extend the contact time. By making the contact time longer it decreases the force on the balloon making it harder to break.
When I thought of this in real life the first thing that came to my head was my dad's keys. We don't just hand stuff to each other in my family, we throw things. My dad always throws me his keys and I used to just catch it and it would dig into my hang and hurt. Now I know to give with the keys and it doesn't hurt. This is because I am able to extend the contact time therefore making the force less and the amount the key digs into my skin is less.