Video By  Jasa

1) I think the most rewarding part of the spaghetti bridge challenge was getting to know and work well with my partners.  It was rewarding because it is important to learn to work well with others

2) i think the thick bridge supports on the sides of the bridge were a great idea because it helped stablize the bridge. Also making two layers for the base was a good plan too.

3) If i could change something about our bridge, I would change the way we assembled it. We didnt think it through well enough and i think it affected our bridges performance. The way we put it together made it weaker then what it should have been.

4) Some advice i would give to someone going to do this project, think out all the details like assembly to the blueprint before you do anything.

Photo By Mr. Bertram

Today we are doing questions online about different kind of graphs and questions about velocity and acceleration.
Part One
1) Instantaneous speed is your speed at one given instant and average speed a measure of the distance traveled in a given period of time. You are reading the instantaneous velocity of the car when you are looking at the speedomerter.
2) Constant speed is when you are going the same speed for a period of time. 300 m
3) Acceleration is the rate an object changes its velocity over a period of time. a= velocity/time.Units are m/s/s, m/hr/s, km/hr/s. 28m/s
Part 2
1) The slope of a position time graph is velocity. The velocity increases. 
2) -3m/s and 4m/s. You determine slope by subtracting final distance and initial distance divided by final time subtract initial time.    
3) The slope of a velocity time graph is acceleration. The line for acceleration will be going on a upper rightward slope, deceleration is going to be the opposite.
Part 3
1) It means they don't encounter air resistance. They are free falling at 9.8 m/s/s
2) The velocity is increasing as its falling. It is accelerating at 3.75 m/s/s  






 

All in all, I really liked the mousetrap vehicle experience. It was really fun because I have never really made alot of things by myself but it was an interesting time doing it. It also was fun because i really liked my group, we got along well with one another. Our vehicle was one of the two that went 10 meters, so that was a good accomplishment.
I think more class time to work on the vehicle and plan out the vehicle would be helpful in making our vehicles better.
To future competitors, make sure you have a good plan before you start building your vehicle. Never put down someones idea because it actually could work very nicely. Also, make sure you put in enough time to make your vehicle the best it can be.

Post Race

Our race day was December 12. Our car was first up to race. The distance it was supposed to go was 10 meters and we had 3 runs. Our first run went well but our car went off the track at 8.66 meters. We learned from this and put it on an angle for the other two runs. It went 10 both times! So I was pleased with the outcome of the competitive distance part of the day.
After the actual race, all the vehicles that went ten meters went in a distance competition to see who's was best and if they could beat the school record. Our vehicle didn't do so well in that competition. It went about 8 meters, not even as good as before.
Then there was the last event of the day, the Drag Race. Our group decided that it would be a good idea to put on  smaller back wheels to increase acceleration. We won the first heat and moved on the the semi finals. We lost that one so we didn't get to compete in the finals.
If I could change our design now to improve the vehicle I would make the vehicle lighter by using different back wheels then records. I would also try and fix the problem of it fading to the right.
If I had to make a new vehicle, I would probably keep it the same for the most part, but change the materials we used for the chassis.
If I could have tweaked something to make our vehicle perform better, I would have made sure the holes i made in the mini sticks more accurate because I think that is why the car faded to the right.

This is our group photo and our car!

Questions

1. I found the planning of the tower to be most rewarding because it is hard to build a good tower if you don't have a good design.
2. Our tower was exactly how we planned it the first time.
3. I think that if we would have made it wider it would of held more mass.

Paper Tower Challenge

Yesterday in physics we did a paper tower challenge. We had ten pieces of paper and one meter of tape to make it. Our group had the second strongest tower in the whole grade.

Agnessa, Jenn, and Chris- Photo by Mr. Bertram

 

For the past few days in physics we a have been learning how to blog. It has been fun to learn how to use the site. We went through all the settings and I now have a basic understanding of the site.