2nd quarter review!

First semester is already over!!
In the 2nd quarter we learned unit 4-6. Unit 4 was about projectile motion. Projectile motion had to do with objects moving up or down and side to side at the same time. A projectile is any object that is only under the influence of gravity. We learned that the axes are independent making it okay for something to move on the x-axis as well as the y-axis at the same time.
Unit 5 was about equilibrium forces. That basically means that the forces are balanced or cancel out. For example, a person just standing has equilibrium forces because the weight and normal force cancel each other out. So the person is standing still. The person could also be walking or moving at a constant velocity to have equal forces.
Unit 6 was forces too, but forces that accelerate. So instead of the forces canceling out and being equal to each other, one force is stronger than the other. This just means that the forces are unbalanced. When this happens, it means that an object is accelerating. Like if you threw a volleyball in the air and it's coming back down. The ball is only under the force of gravity and is accelerating downwards. There is no force pushing it upwards so the force of weight and gravity is the strongest and only force making it come down to the ground.

My beautiful physics table!! <3
This picture could also represent how gravity pushes us down and normal force pushes us up.
Yay semester 1 pau!!

FREE BODY DIAGRAMS!

Today we learned about the construction of free body diagrams and went more into depth with Newton's laws.
Newton's Laws
1. Object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
2. F=MA which is force equals mass times acceleration
3. Between 2 interacting objects, there are equal and opposite forces between them.

Free Body diagrams are simple diagrams that shows the size and direction of all forces acted upon an object.We learned when and how to use weight, normal, friction, and tension, which are all forces that we use in our everyday life. Weight is a force usually used because of gravity pulling weight down to the center of the earth. Normal is anything that you touch. Friction applies force opposite the direction that an object is going. Tension, a lot of times in a string, is always constant.

When I am holding the bottle, the force of gravity and the weight holds down the bottle in my hand. It also keeps it from floating upwards. Normal force keeps the bottle from going farther down than my hand because my hand is stopping it from going down any further. If I were to move my hand, the force of gravity would let the bottle fall to the ground.

Projectile Motion Day 2

We shot rockets today! Class went by pretty fast since we spent the first half outside shooting rockets and almost the second half taking our test and bidding our farewells to Mr. Blake..kind of not really. For our rockets, we used 4 different types of caps to see which one would go the farthest, but was the most consistent with the amount of time it was in the "ayer." After we did all of the trials shooting straight upwards, we put our rocket at an angle to try and hit Mr. Blake since he's leaving us for almost an entire week. D: We found out the most consistent of the 4 caps and used that one to try and hit Mr. Blake. We were super close the first time, kind of, but we never got to hit him.

Another cheerleading picture, but this picture is when we're stunting. When you come out of a stunt the people on the bottom throw the flyers (or the top people) in the air just like shooting rockets. You propel into the air when they throw you, slow down, stop at the top then come back down and land in their arms. The rocket does the same, but lands on the ground. :)

Unit 4: Projectile Motion!!

Second quarter!!!
Unit 4 is about projectile motion. First thing's first. A projectile is any object that is only under the influence of gravity. Examples of that could be a bullet or water coming out from a water fountain. So projectile motion has to do with an object in motion. It could be moving horizontally only, vertically only, or both at the same time. The main focus was on the x and y axes or the horizontal and vertical lines in which the object is moving. We learned the Vegas rule which states that axes are independent because "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." What happens on the x axis stays on the x axis and what happens on the y axis stays on the y axis. Because the axes are independent, an object can move both horizontally and vertically at the same time. For example a ball that is being thrown up into the air, but also being thrown forward. It's direction is up and forward or horizontal and vertical.

It's another flippy picture!! A friend and I are doing aerials for a dance show. This shows projectile motion because doing an aerial, you have to push off the ground in the vertical direction AND the horizontal direction at the same time. You have to go forward just because the trick takes up horizontal space and you have to go up otherwise you'll land on your head.

Quarter 1!!!! woop woop!

First quarter is already over!! The first three units that we went over so far were unit 1, introduction to physics, unit 2, kinematics and unit 3, acceleration. 

Unit 1 was all about introducing us to a few simple physics concepts. Physics is the study of the real world. We learned units, measurements, relationships and analysis. Basically stuff about interpreting and making graphs, variables and relationships of the graphs, units of measurement and measurement with the metric system.

This picture is of a group of paddlers. It's a simple example of motion and how fast they have to paddle in a certain amount of time and distance. Since we also learned about qualitative and quantitative qualities. A qualitative observation could be that the people are paddling at a fast pace and a quantitative observation could be that there are six paddlers in the canoe.

Kinematics is the study of motion so Unit 2 had everything to do with motion. Motion is always relative meaning it's moving in relation to another object or person, but usually relative to the ground. To help us understand motion better, we were taught about different measurements such as speed, distance, position, velocity, displacement, acceleration, magnitude and if they were vector or scalar values. We memorized equations and graphing rules. We practiced lots of equations too!

This is a picture of my kitty, Jasper, "attacking" me. He was running towards me. He started from a rest position and ran with speed and direction, which is velocity. Since motion is relative; his movement can be relative to objects around him such as the ground. Since he is moving relative to the floor, the floor is moving.

Acceleration is the rate at which velocity changes. In unit 3, we found the different between acceleration in the positive direction, acceleration in the negative direction, and no acceleration. If the velocity is constant, which means the speed doesn't change, then it's not accelerating. Positive direction is just away from the origin, like in a graph, and negative is towards the origin. We did a lot of problems with acceleration too. The force of gravity is also a an important part of acceleration.

Even though this wasn't the assignment, Mahina and I ended up playing volleyball. It's still an example of acceleration though because when we hit the ball up, it has to come back down. It comes down because of the force of gravity. The force of gravity has an acceleration of about 10 meters per second per second. So the ball is always accelerating either upwards or downward, but still yet, always accelerating. When it reaches the top of it's path though, it's velocity stops for a moment, but it's always accelerating.

Unit 3: Más acceleration

Today in class, we learned more about acceleration, but more so to do with gravity. Gravity is the force that pulls something towards the center of the earth. We learned about the acceleration upwards, or away from the center of the earth, and the acceleration downwards, which is the force of gravity. We also discovered how to use acceleration versus time graphs and compare them to the position versus time graphs and the velocity versus time graphs.

Galileo's concept of "uniform acceleration, he defined it as equal increases in speed in equal intervals of time." This represents and backs up the picture on the left because even though the volleyball and tennis ball are different sizes, masses, weights, etc., they still hit the ground at the same time.

On the right is a picture of an activity that we did to figure out the acceleration, velocity and position when we throw the ball up and comes back down because of force of gravity.

Unit 3: Acceleration

In class today, we learned more about motion. The main focus was on acceleration though. Acceleration is the rate at which velocity changes. An object that is not moving at a constant motion could be accelerating. If an object is moving in the opposite way then it is accelerating in the negative direction. If an object has a constant velocity, then there is no acceleration.

We did an activity today that helped us to understand acceleration. Someone sat on the skateboard and we timed how long it took every 5 meters until it reached 50 meters. As the skateboard went down the hill, it picked up speed, which means it was accelerating. We also learned some equations that helped us determine the velocity, acceleration and/or distance.

More kinematics

In class on Friday, we learned more about kinematics and graphing. We focused on position versus time graphs to help us determine the average speed, velocity, displacement, distance traveled, equations, etc. We also focused on the velocity versus time graph to determine the same objectives and variables.

The activity that we did in class was all about position vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs. We learned more about how the graphs work according to your position and how fast you're moving, obviously. We were given already made graphs for both position and velocity. We had to figure out how to follow the lines of the graph by choosing when to stop, when to go, when to speed up, when to slow down, when to move closer, and when to move farther away.
This is a picture of Mahina trying to figure out how to follow the graphs. This isn't a very good example because her speed wasn't very constant. She wasn't very good at it :)

Unit 2-Kinematics

Unit 2 was all about kinematics or the study of motion. All motion is relative. It depends on how you're referencing motion to another object. Everything is moving relative to an object that's moving. A lot of the time motion is relative to the ground since the ground is always still. We learned lots of new vocabulary words as well like magnitude, distance, speed, position, velocity, scalar, vector, displacement, and acceleration. Magnitude is how much something has or the muchness of it. Distance is how far. Speed is the rate at which position changes per unit of time. Position is where you are relative to an object. Velocity is speed with direction. Scalar is quantity that has magnitude and vector is value that has magnitude and direction. (Oh yeah) Displacement is the distance with direction and acceleration is the rate at which velocity changes. We also learned the graphing rules.

This is a picture of me at a cheerleading competition. It has to do with kinematics because when you're flipping, it's obviously motion. In order to flip up into the air though, you must start from your starting point and accelerate to gain momentum and speed. You also need to travel a certain velocity in order to maintain enough energy to flip over.

Unit 1 Introduction

Unit 1 was basically a introduction to physics. It contained a lot of review and refreshing and some new concepts. In this unit, we learned a lot about numbers and graphing. We studied about pendulums, graphing, scientific notation, conversions, metric units, accuracy and precision.

This is a picture of me swinging on the pendulum during the pendulum lab. We weren't actually supposed to swing though. In the pendulum lab, we learned about how pendulums work, the independent and dependent variables and how to graph as well. We discovered that the mass, us humans differing in mass, and angle, which are independent variables didn't have an effect on the dependent variable, or the period. The period is the time that something takes to finish it's cycle. The length of the string of the pendulum, however, did have an effect on the period.

Letter of Introduction

Hi I'm Alana. I'm 1/8 Hawaiian and I tried out for Kamehameha 3 times and didn't get in any of the three times. I'm a cheerleader. I did gymnastics for 8 years since I was 2. I used to play soccer, until I fractured my wrist from being tripped and landing on it.
I took summer biology my freshman year and chemistry last year. I thought I did pretty well, but a few of the concepts confused me and I struggled with them quite a bit. Even though, I'm probably not the best at science, it's my favorite subject because everything is so fascinating. I took geometry last year.
Basically I hope to learn more science and of course physics. I also hope that I will be able to find a stronger grasp on some of the concepts that I've struggled with that we will continue to learn. I also want to get this class done so I can take other classes.

 I chose this picture because cats are my favorite animal in the entire world. I'm a 100% a cat person. I also think that he's just really cute, happy, innocent and likes sugar and happy things. I think I am, or try to be a happy and innocent person. I also like things that make me happy.