Science Week 26

Monday or March 2, 2015 A.D.:

Today we got ready for the quiz on Unit 2 Section 1. We reviewed and took a practice quiz to do this. We also finished the graph for the coffee filter lab.The graph was a drop height vs. average velocity. After entering our data we saw how the line tapered off at the top. We were then able to estimate the approximate terminal velocity of the coffee filter. I really liked finally finishing the graph so I could find the terminal velocity of the filter. The terminal velocity of the filter was around 0.85 m/s.

Tuesday or March 3, 2015 A.D.: 

Today we took our Unit 2 Section 1 quiz. The quiz was about Gravity, projectile motion, free fall, and terminal velocity. Most of the quiz was multiple choice or match the answers so it did not take very long. I think I did pretty decent on my quiz and I cannot wait to find out what grade I received. The test was short so I was able to start on my homework. 

Wednesday or March 4, 2015 A.D.: 

We started unit 1 section 2, but we only skimmed the section.We also played Angry Birds!!!!! Mrs. Giacomelli made a big tower of boxes and she put little green balloons in them. The Balloons had Angry Bird pig faces on them. She also made a slingshot out of elastic cords and fabric that we put little red foam balls into to knock over the tower. We divided ourselves into teams and we shot at the tower. We hit the tower 3 times and we knocked it over once. One of the pigs was orange because another one popped. We called that one the sunburned pig and we put him on the top of the tower.We did this in celebration of the end of the projectile motion unit.


Thursday or March 5, 2015 A.D.:

Today we started the Circular Motion lab. We cut some rope and tried to make it just over 1 meter long.We then tied one hexagonal nut on the end of the string hoping it would be 100 centimeters. The string was only about 92 centimeters, though. We then picked Evan who was in my group to swing the rope. Once he swung the rope at a constant rate we timed the time he took to make 20 rotations. We also collected data with more hexagonal nuts as we went to see what happens when you add more mass to something in circular motion.


Friday or March 6, 2015 A.D.:

Today we only watched Bill Nye the Science Guy as he blows up foam Sharks with dynamite. :P

Summary: Today was a very productive week. I learned a lot. I still need to work on completing things efficiently.

Science Week 25

Monday or February 23, 2015 A.D.:

Today was the first day that we tested our catapult  and received data for the competition. We were the last catapult to start testing, though, so it will take us a while to finish testing. Our slow reload time may cause us to take an even longer time to finish. We did relatively good on accuracy because the amount of force the spring has is almost constant. I enjoyed seeing all the catapults in action and the different ways they worked.
Today we started a new lab called the terminal velocity coffee filter lab. We also had a substitute because Mrs. Giacomelli was coaching the Sci Oly team.



Tuesday or February 24, 2015 A.D.:

No class!Snowday :-)))

Wednesday or February 25, 2015 A.D.:

Today we started school 2 hours late because the roads were still icy. We had a very short day today and very short class. Today was the last day of testing. We didn't get done testing because of our long reload time, we had to test outside in the wind, and it was a short class. We had to put zeros in some of our tests where we could have done much better. Also in the tower test (You have to knock over a tower) we didn't have enough time to aim in the right direction so we couldn't knock it over. It was fun though because at the end of class I jumped into the puddle of ice.

Thursday or February 26, 2015 A.D.:

Today we had a substitute because Mrs. Giacomelli was working with the Science Olympiad team. Today we also started a new lab called the terminal velocity coffee filter lab. To collect data we dropped a coffee filter from a height of 25 cm to 200 cm in 25 cm intervals. We then timed the flight time to the bottom for three times each and then calculated the average of the times. We then found the average velocity by dividing the flight height over the average time. The goal is to make a graph of the average velocity and to estimate the terminal velocity of the coffee filter. There was a lot of room for human error though so we probably were not very accurate.

Friday or February 27, 2015 A.D.:

Today we started to make the graphs for the Coffee filter lab. We did the average speed graph first so we could get to the real one yet. (the one where we can estimate the terminal velocity) We also finished the catapult lab questions and we found out which groups were the winners, which we were not, obviously. The teams who I thought would win won. Next time I make a catapult I would make a huge tower with a large arm on the end. Powering the arm would be a plethora of rubber bands that would as a result shoot the projectile an easy 10 meters.


Summary: This week was a good week because of our good teamwork with working with our catapult. I can still improve on homework efficiency and efficiency in class.

Science Week 24

Monday or February 16, 2015 A.D.:

Today we started out the week with a new unit. We started Unit 2 and did Section 1. In it we talked about gravity and the equation for weight. This is Weight = mass x acceleration of gravity (W=mg). We also learned what a projectile is and what they do. We then did a unique experiment about center of gravity. We experimented to find out how much water we needed to balance a soda can on its side. We found out that you need at least 38 milligrams, but you can use more than 150 milligrams of water. The soda can could balance on its side because we changed it's center of gravity so it could do this.


Tuesday or February 17, 2015 A.D.:

Today we started the lab we have all been waiting for!!! We started the catapult lab. We were sorted into groups and I was sorted with Varun and Maisie. Varun had a plan to begin with, which was essentially a compressed spring that when released would shoot out a projectile. We had to bring in an item each so we could start to build. I am responsible for taking the pvc pipe for the spring to reside in. I am also responsible for taking the cardboard to build the platform that ideally, will point the spring out at a 45 degree angle.

Wednesday or February 18, 2015 A.D.:
 
Today we started on our catapult. We were constantly trying to get our spring's ramp to have a 45 degree angle which was really hard. Varun brought in the spring which was very strong and big. He demonstrated how the spring would work in which he took a tube, pushed the spring inside and held it in place with a screwdriver. We tested our catapult and it went really far. We are very hopeful and optimistic for the competition next week. Next week we are going to try and aim our projectiles into a bowl and as far as we can.We think we could easily get it very far, although we will have to work on accuracy.

Thursday or February 19, 2015 A.D.:

Today was the first day of intense testing.and in the second test our spring got lost in a tree.We didn't know until Varun saw it and we had to get Mrs. Giacomelli to get it down. She got it down and we started to reassemble for test 3 when a vital cap was gone. We searched for many minutes in the freezing cold when finally we found the cap at the end of the period. The other designs look way cooler than ours because we weighed down our design with bricks which makes it look very weird. We are still optimistic about winning this.

Friday or February 20, 2015 A.D.:

Today we made further improvements while our catapult's performance has gone down. In the meantime other catapults have become better and bigger. Our angle is too shallow at about 30 degrees and our projectiles are getting as far as when you flick them with spoon. We are extremely pessemistic and have little hope of winning anything not even the "how far can you get it" competition.


Summary: Today was a week where I had to go above and beyond with creativity to build our catapult. It is also a good week to learn and to improve. I think I should improve on working more efficiently on homework.

Science Week 23

Monday or February 2, 2015 A.D.:

Today we started our bowling forces lab. In this lab Lauren, Keira, and I rolled around various round sports equipment and timed how long it went 8 meters. We rolled each ball slow one time and fast the next time. Lauren rolled every time so we could try to get the same amount of force. I was the timer and Keira was the reckless roll catcher. She made sure that we wouldn't crush the door because we got really close to doing that. Also, every time we rolled a ball we wrote down the weight in Kg of the ball and the time it rolled into a data table.

Tuesday or February 3, 2015 A.D.:

Today we finished up our rolling. We rolled a bowling ball, a softball, and a big red exercise ball. The bowling ball was extremely heavy so I am expecting to find a lot of N of force that we need to push it 8 meters when we make our calculations. We also started calculating the velocity and acceleration of the balls we rolled so we could start finding the force we needed to roll each ball. I really liked this lab. 

Wednesday or February 4, 2015 A.D.:

Today we did something I am not going to forget. Mrs. Giacomelli said she was going to smash a cinder block on Mr. Simon's belly. She was asking us how to lay the cinder block on Mr. Simon so we hurt him the least. We decided to lay the cinder block on its flat side because it must be sturdiest with its holes on top. We assumed this because when people build with cinder blocks they build the holes on top. Mrs. G then took a sledgehammer and smashed the cinder block on Mr. Simon's belly. We then had to list reasons why Mr. Simon did not have a big hole in his stomach. Three of the reasons include: The force was distributed on his body. The force was partially used to break the cinder blocks. The force wasn't even that great because cinder blocks break easily as they are not built to withstand sudden shock. We also finished our lab after this.

Mr. Simon after the experiment... HE IS ALIVE!!!!!

Thursday or February 5, 2015 A.D.:

Today we had to turn in our lab. We also talked about the different types of forces that affect an object's motion. These forces are air resistance, friction, gravity, applied force, and normal force. I learned that an example of normal force is when a pencil is on a table the table pushes up. We also used free-body diagrams and diagrammed all of the forces acting on the object. We then had to find out the net force or where and with how much force an object is moving. 

Friday or February 6, 2015 A.D.:

Today we finished our study guide for the test on Unit 1 that is coming up soon. We were able to get help from Mrs. Giacomelli which made me feel very relieved because some of the questions where pretty hard. Did you know that static friction is the force that acts upon an object that is not moving? An example of this can be seen when you cannot move a box that is on a rough surface.

Summary: This week was better week than last week, but I still need to work on making my things neater and more organized. I can do this by making my notes neater by always bringing a good, sharpened pencil. I can make my labs neater by writing on a separate sheet of paper if there is not enough room on the lab sheet itself.

Science Week 22

Monday or January 26, 2015 A.D.:

Uh Oh! We reviewed for a quiz that is coming up so I better start studying. Today we also started a lab. In this lab Ben and I formed a hypothesis and asked a question. Our question was "What is Sebastian's average chomping speed within 10 second intervals?" Our hypothesis said the following. "Sebastian will chomp at and average speed of 10 chomps per 10 second interval. Ben and I then made a data table to get ready for the chomping that will take place tomorrow.

Tuesday or January 27, 2015 A.D.:

Today we experimented for our chomping lab. I chomped very obnoxiously and counted the chomps while Ben used the stop watch. After 5 10sec. intervals my average chomping speed was 1.1chomps/second or 11chomps/10sec. I enjoyed making annoying noises while chewing that sounded similar to a pig's snort, but also like some kind of growl. I then put the data into Microsoft Office Excel. Woohoo 2007 Microsoft Office all the way!!! We then made it into a chomps vs. time graph and I added a trend line to help us make a conclusion. Our conclusion included that my chomping speed went down over time (each interval was on average a little faster than the one after it) thanks to the trend line. We also wrote how we could improve on the project and how to expand on it.

Wednesday or January 28, 2015 A.D.:

Today we had our quiz on Physics Unit 1 Section 1-2. Mrs. Giacomelli said we would need a calculator and I was really scared because I don't own one. I was really glad when I was taking the test because I only saw one square root I had to simplify and that one was a perfect square. The test was also not too hard. I hope I get an 'A'.  

 


Thursday or January 29, 2015 A.D.:

Today we were introduced into a new section Unit Section 3. We learned about Equilibrium and that an object is in this state when all the forces acting on it cancel exactly. We also discussed Inertia and how it describes most of us on Saturday mornings because an object that stays at rest wants to stay at rest or stay resting. :) We also learned that friction occurs when two objects rub and this forms heat and opposes motion. We also reviewed that Acceleration is measured in m/sec. squared and that force is measured in Newtons.

Friday or January 30, 2015 A.D.:

Today we got our tests back and I got a 90.322580645% :(. Supposedly the class average was 88% so that makes me a little happier. :) Today we also finished our Bubble gum lab and we made it nice and neat. We went over our test and looking back on it if I had done it more carefully I would be able to get another 6.451612904% on the test.

Summary: This week was a good learning experience for two reasons. The first reason was that on the test I did not do as well as I could have because I did not check over every problem carefully. The second reason is that because I was more focused in the last 2 days of the school week I was able to do more homework at school and was able to have free time at home. 

Science Week 21

Monday or January 20, 2015 A.D.:

No School! :)

Tuesday or January 21, 2015 A.D.:

Today in Physics class we went over some vocabulary. We went over motion which I already know, but we went over Frame of Reference which I have never learned. Frame of Reference is an object that you use to measure motion of a different object. If someone runs on an American Football field and we say that he ran 10 yards, we compare it to the field and say the field is not moving. Because we are basing the motion of the player who is running down the field on the field, the field is the Frame of Reference. We also went over the difference between weight and mass (weight is the net force of gravity and mass is how much matter). At the end of class we learned about Scalars and Vectors. Scalars are a number and a unit like 4 meters/second. A vector is a scalar with direction. (4 meters/second left )

What do you get when you cross a mountain climber with a mosquito?
Nothing! You cannot combine a scalar with a vector.


Wednesday or January 22, 2015 A.D.:

We went over more vectors and combined two vectors and made a new vector called a Resultant vector. We then learned some more vocab and I learned that Displacement is the shortest distance between the origin and a point that an object was or is. After this we started a new lab called Super Worm Average Speed Lab. We used actual worms or larvae that looks like a worm, yes, but they don't have any super powers nor are they super heroes. In the lab we had to write statistics of how far etc. the worm moved on a piece of paper into a table. We would put a dot on the paper where the worm's head was and let the worm crawl for 10 seconds. We would then put a dot where the head of the worm now is. We repeated this process 5 more times so the worm traveled for one minute total. Then we found the distance between the dots and the displacement between the dots and the origin. Because we knew that between every dot the worm traveled for ten seconds, we made a rate of speed. Ex. 6cm/10sec. which if converted to a Unit Rate = .6cm / second. By the way our group's worm's name is Tofu.

Super Worm!

Thursday or January 23, 2015 A.D.:

Today we worked on our lab group graph sheet. We made it really nice and colorful and drew very many worms. We also worked on our lab questions and made two graphs. One graph was for the displacement for each dot that the worm traveled through and the other graph was for the total distance the worm had traveled until that point. Ms. Trainer was our substitute and because she is a math teacher, she was able to help us with the math involved in finding the average speeds and things not unlike that.

Friday or January 24, 2015 A.D.:

Mrs.Giacomelli was back today and we reviewed what we learned this week. She helped us with our lab if we had any questions and I was glad she did because I interpreted a question wrong and I was able to fix my answer. In our worm project we put on our finishing touches and I think it looks great now. Ben and Keira did the graph decorations, Anna made the graph dots and made sure they were all in the right spots, and I told Anna what the statistics where and colored the lines with the help of Ben. Teamwork!

Summary: This week was really fun and I really liked learning about physics. The thing I liked the most is that I learned that vectors and scalars are not as scary as I thought they were in the past 2 years. I believe I should work on always having a back-up pencil because I didn't have in Science class on Monday and I had to do my notes in erasable colored pencil. <===" that was supposed to be a pencil...

Science Week 19

Monday or January 5, 2015 A.D.:

Review for the dreaded midterms started today which made me feel both good and bad. I felt good because the reviews will help me do better on the midterm, but I felt bad because now I know how close the midterms really are! Today we studied Unit 1 which I was not here for so I will not be graded on it, but it was still interesting to learn some of what was in the unit. I learned that a control group is the group you do nothing to and that you can only have an accurate experiment if you change one thing at a time.

Tuesday or January 6, 2015 A.D.:

Review happened today again, but this time it was more fun than yesterday. We partnered up to solve 6 questions together. The 2 groups who got them all right in the shortest amount of time got to participate in a Minute-to-win-it match. In the first match you had to fan a tissue paper fish into a basket. In the second match you had to move 10 beans from one part of the room to a cup on the other side. In the third match all of us could participate and we had to eat a vanilla wafer balanced on our Frontalis with only our head and facial muscles.

Chad won with 00:00:23.00

John Steward came closest to winning with 8 beans at the end of the minute.

Wednesday or January 7, 2015 A.D.:

Mrs.Giacomelli reviewed Unit 3 with us by splitting us into two teams. A person on each team was asked a question per round. Every time a person gets a question right it's team gets one point. Every time a team got three points a players on that team got to try a minute to win it game. On our team Delaney got to do it and she had to keep 3 balloons from falling down. She was not successful so our team did not get an additional 2 points. The other team got 3 points that same round and also played a minute to win it game. In this game Will Golder strapped a Yo-Yo to his back and had to demolish several mini towers of soda cans and cups. He went berserk, almost tore down the school, and broke the outside of the Yo-Yo off.

Thursday or January 8, 2015 A.D.:

Today we had another day of review and this time on Unit 4. We were put in groups of 3 and were given a sheet of paper with a grid 5 by 5. I was put with J.S. and Emma J. The first 4 columns of the grid were for 20 questions of 5 points each. The last column was element trivia and was 5 points altogether. The last question (not in the grid) was a question where we had to wager 0-5 points. After answering all questions, we wagered 3 points and got it right by reciting the first ten elements by atomic number and thus winning candy and the competition with 105 points. Yippee!

Friday or January 9, 2015 A.D.:

Today we played the same game as yesterday just with new groups and it was on Units 5&6. The game was really exciting and I really enjoyed it. My group did not do well, but it was fun and that is what matters. I really hope that this review will help reduce unnecessary stress because I believe I can do well on it, I just can't get that into my head.

Summary: This week provided the opportunity to have fun as well as to learn, because I realized how much material I forget over such a short amount of time. In the future I will try to both retain more information and to remember to study everything, not just the material I know enough to remember to study. In other words, study everything instead of studying what you know you don't know because there is probably something you are forgetting that you know just as badly as the things you know you don't know. Sorry that probably didn't make much sense (but it makes sense to me :)).