Celebrate good times

    Let me begin with our one science class before Thanksgiving break (ya, I know its been forever since that time, but c'est la vive). In that one science class we did a lab that I have doved the car convergence lab. In this lab we pretended that we were in Hollywood and were camera men who had to predict were two cars would crash in 3 different situations. Here were the scenarios...

1: two cars are coming at eachother, one at the reference point, the other 4 meters away, each car was going at different speeds and we had to predict were they would collide.

2: There was a bad guy speeding away from a robbery and the hero had to catch up to him. Were would they meet?

3: There is a bad guy going to crash into a bank and the hero has to diverge the car that the villans are driving. Now the only way they can diverge them is by T-boning them 2 meters away from the bank. The challenging is to start the car at the right moment to crash into the villains at the right time.
     So these are the set-ups and each group got to pick the senerio they wanted and had to use any one of the three methods we had have been learning to predict were each car would meet. That was the only clues that were given by the director (Mr. B).
     The scenario my group went with was the one were the two cars were coming right at eachother and we had to find the place to put the camera to see the crash. The first thing my group had to find was the speed that each car was going. To do this, we took a meter stick and timed how long each car took to go one meter. This posed some challenges for us, this is because we weren't sure how exact we had to be when placing our "camera". As a result, we timed each car about 4 times each and instead of using the average, (I know, what were we thinking), we went with the median of the speeds. Later, we found out that the camera was represented by a sticky note.
     Next, was how we found out were to place the camera. Our group initially started out by breaking into two smaller groups and each of us ran down different ideas. My partner and I decided to with high tech., a graphing calculator. That way is would tell us were the cars would crash at the nearest thousandth. However, what looks to be good in theory doesn't always work out in real life. That showed up here because when we tried to get graph the two equations they intersected at .2 seconds. Now that didn't make any sense because neither car was going 5 meters/second. In retrospect, we forgot about the y intercept of 4 meters on the second car and made each car start at the origin. After repeatly trying to fix that method we gave up and decided to go into the next method. It consisted of using math.
     When we started this method, we originally put each equation equal to eachother. This was because if the two cars  were going to crash into eachother, that meant that each of their positions were the same. I remembered  this fact because we had done something like this in Algebra last year. However, when we did this, we used the "Rate times time equals distance" formula, and even though we had two variables it was still seemed impossible for us to figure it out. Looking back at this problem we should have used the "y=mx+b" equations, that would have given us the answer. Altough hiensight is always a witch like that. Another thing I learned was that I do not work well under pressure. I know this because I now have all of the correct equations after thinking about it for a while, but when we only had one hour to figure everything out, I was not thinking straight.
     Finally, after we realized we weren't going anywhere we looked at what our counterparts were doing.  They had gone low tech. with a simple white board. Orginally, they started with a motion map, unforanatly, since no one really understands how they actually work they aren't very accurate, therefore, they changed tactics and made a manual position vs. time graph. By doing this, they remembered to include the y intercept in one of the cars. When they came up with the answer of 3.4 meters I began to check it with that rate times time equation, but it didn't come out exact. I suspect that was because of the fact that they rounded to the nearest tenth and not the nearest thousandth. It did, however, not matter because even though the equations weren't exact, in practice those figures worked beautifully.

For an explanation of scenario 3, this blog helped http://ittakesphysics.blogspot.com/
     Next was the day we came back from break. Now, decided to give us yet another lab to do . My group deciced to creisen this one "The Car Acceleration Lab". In this lab we had to find the relationship of a high tech. low resistance match box car and its velocity initally, our group would of had to use a marker and a metronome. With the marker we had to mark where the car was after each tick of the metronome. We did however, learn from one of our ealier mistakes that we should measure from the back of the car instead of the front of it. It still didn't help us with keep up with the car, though. That's when Mr. B brought out a tickertape. A tickertape is a device that uses a marker on a wheel to mark on a piece of tape were something is if the tape is being pulled along with it. We did however, run into the problem of how to apply this new ability to the car. We solved this issue by putting the tickertape on a perch right next to the car with one person holding onto the tape, this was to present tagling. After that, we then let the car ride down the slope and repeated this step a total of 5 times.
     After getting good data we had to interpret it. The issue that we ran into was the fact that we had to try and find speed without a set amount of time, or so we thought. It wasn't until I had remembered a conversation that we had with the whole class I remembered it doesn't matter what unit you us as long as it was consistant. Therefore, we used each tick as a unit of time, but this caused another problem. This one was that we had to find the relationship of time to velocity and not velocity over time, we also had to count each dot fast and there was over 200 of them. Thefore, we got around each of these issues by counting 15 dots and measured the distance inbetween that grouping, that way we could see the distance traveled, which would give us speed, over a set amount of time. We did however, forgot to count each grouping in an accumulative manner. That caused us to have a really messed up set of data. That is however, all the time we had. We would actually talk about our findings next week as a class, that was going to be interesting. At the end of the day, Mr. B. decided to give us a packet. Note: the speed seemed to increase as the car went down the ramp.

    On Friday, we checked the packet (apparently, the one student found the answers online) and everything went fine, except, I learned I have got to watch what units I use on my axises. Little did I know that I had to learn that lesson fast. That is because the packet was really our study guide to the "celebration" we were about to have, it consisted of over 20 problems. You see a celebration is Mr. B's word for test and the fairwell to a chapter.
     On the actual test I knew the material quite well (or so I thought) because I finished within the first 10 minutes, but of course I had to check my answers. That was when I discovered I still had issues with motion maps and average velocity. You see, the whole test was set up like a prevous worksheet we had, on it we were given one representation of data and had to create the 3 other ones. The reason I feel that I messed up on the motion maps was because of the counting of the dots. You see, I still hadn't gotten the two concepts of the first dot is 0 seconds and  you count each dot and not the arrows. I had issues with this on the review too. I hadn't realized that if a trend stops at 4 seconds then I needed 5 dots, 4 with arrows going in one direction and the last one with a changed direction. I had to use the method of talking  to myself in order to get something remotely accutrate. Then the issue with the average velocity was the fact that I had gotten 0 for the velocity and the object was moving, so it didn't make any sense. However, some of my guesses could be right, we will see.

Goal for next week: Stop dominating in my small group

Two weeks of FUN

     Hey everybody, I'm back. I know I didn't post a blog last week, but I wanted to try something new, instead of writing a blog every week and have some topics run into the next week, I wanted to try and blog after a new concept is completed, also, writing a 4 page blog takes up a ton of time, which I wanted to myself for once. Anyways, the last two weeks we have been continuing our focus with motion maps, mathematical equations, and a bunch of other graphs that show velocity, position, and time. These are all good and well, but the main things that caught my eye was the explanation of average velocity, average speed, displacement, and interpretation of some graphs. This is because I have sooooo many issues with these concepts (or at least I used to).
     To begin with, on the first day of the first week we had a long discussion on what is displacement. You see, our leading theory the week before was how far an object moved between two points in a given amount of time. However, this theory thrown out the window as soon as we started class. It turns out one of my classmates had a different view of what it was and moved right to that theory. The person's theory stated that displacement is no more than how far an object moves in relationship to the starting point, which did make a little sense, especially, when put into context with the packet we had earlier. The packet defined displacement as "final position minus the starting position". Even though we came to the right answer I was a little angry. This is because not only did we skip over a viable theory (the one I had long supported also) and despite 30 minutes of raising my hand, we never took a second look at that theory. It wasn't until after 45 minutes that my quest was completed and I had closure. Also, I wasn't the only kid who had a problem with not being called on, I know of at least 2 other kids who could not have their voice's heard. It did however, get better. This is because Mr. B. intervened on our behalf a couple of times. I think the plus- delta we had is doing wonders.
     After that, there was the average speed and average velocity equations I could not remember to save my soul and when I read them it was like reading gibberish. The actual equations were written as " average velocity is the displacement (final position minus original position) divided by the time elapsed" and average speed was " the distance traveled along the path (change in odometer reading) divided by the time elapsed". The only thing I could get out of those definitions was the fact that the denominator was how much time went by. It wasn't until we had two packets that I finally understood what to do. It turns out with average velocity you just divide displacement by the time elapsed. This was easier for me to remember, but there was another way of solving average velocity also. It involved connecting the two points directly and finding the slope. That was my initial guess as to how to do this equation, but I was not sure. As for average speed, it involved counting up all of the distances period, and then divide it by the amount of time that had passed. There was one other caveat though, there is no such thing as a negative speed so if we had a negative speed we would use the absolute value. These two conversations took up the entire time in the first week.
     In the next week we talked about interpreting position vs. time graphs, motion maps, and velocity vs. time graphs. This was done in the form of another packet (which I forgot we had). Even though I forgot to do that packet I was able to have my voice heard, this was also due to the fact that we implemented the hand raising system for talking.
    The first thing we talked about was the position vs. time graph. This started out with us drawing the graph to replicate the movement of a skater. Now, all of the class drew a standard graph with sharp curves and straight lines because we assumed that was how the skater skated based on the data. However, Mr. B. pointed us in the direction of other possibilities, like curved lines instead of straight ones, also a gradually decreasing speed when the skater stop not a sudden drop. This led to a lot of confusion, especially when we tried to translate all of the possibilities. For instance, when we had a curved line between the points we said that the skater was gaining speed and for the sharp drops the skater tripped and fell, but in the end our original design was correct.
    After that side note we started to talk about the infamous motion maps. Now, I say infamous because all of us hate these maps because almost no one really understands them. Some of the things that we talked about this time pertained to one map in particular, it is is shown on the right.
The question was how many seconds can we actually count. Half of the class said 3 seconds and the other half said 4. The argument for 3 seconds was the fact that there were only 3 complete cycles of a dot followed by an
arrow ending with another dot. Then, the argument for being able to tell 4 seconds was the fact that it is the arrow that tell the object's speed and duration of travel, therefore, since we had the arrow and it was a constant length we could assume the next point would follow the same pattern as previously produced. I supported that theory until the bitter end, it turns out we could tell only three seconds because the speed or duration of the skater could have changed with in the data down the road. This discussion did however, bring spark
my question of "if we can't assume the point of the next cycle then what do we do with that line?" This question was not answered this week, but Mr. B. heard it and really liked it, so it will be asked next time. Some other questions that I would like to ask include "what do each part of the motion map represent, like the arrow or line" or "why don't we use lines or segments instead of rays". My guesses for these questions in order are, 1. it doesn't represent anything, 2. the arrow represents the graph continuing and the line is how fast  the object is moving, and 3. we use a ray in order to represent the starting and ending of a period.
    After that, we talked about whether each point represents a second or just a snap shot of time, along with what can do with that information. We did this by using the moving model again. Mr. B walked along a marked path dropping bean bags at even intervals of time to represent the points of the map. This showed that each point does represent a snap shot in time. That was my original guess, too. Next, was the realization that on any type of graph speed or velocity cannot be found without 2 or more points. This went back to the comment of the slope being the speed of the an object.This was more of a statement by Mr. B than anything.
     After that, we discussed what the area in between the axis and line meant on a velocity vs. time graph. We first had to find out what each box meant, and that wasn't hard. We just had to do a little cross multiplying and we were done. Each box (for our graphs) represented one meter. We did however, learn something to be aware of, it was to make sure that we actually multiplied and not set up my equations as if we were dividing. From there, we counted the number of boxes between those two lines and that apparently represented the displacement of the object too.
     Next, we briefly touched on relations again, specifically on whether we should name a velocity vs. time graph with a horizontal line as "no relationship". This issue was again a split right down the middle of the class. Some were saying that there was no relationship based on our previous discussions from week 1 and 2. However, the actual question was to write the mathematical equation that represents that set up. Then, the other half of the class remembered that for a horizontal equation it is just y= a number. We resolved the issue by just putting both forms and say that it's a matter of preference.

     Finally, we talked about how all of these graphs are interconnected. We talked about how we could take any of the representations of movement we learned i.e. the position vs. time graph, velocity vs. time graph, motion map, description of the event, or a motion map and make all of the others. In fact, that is what our homework is on, we have to create the other 4 representations for the one representation that is given to us. Later in the future Mr. B. said we will be getting into some of the laws pertaining to motion, so that will be fun.
    
Here are some helpful sources if there is still any confusion on any of the topics I discussed
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/1dkin/u1l4e.cfm
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/1dkin/u1l1d.cfm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC0hlJlbu1A

Velocity Graphs, Motion Maps, and Postition Graphs: Ohh My

      This week we finished the lab that we started last week. I know I briefly explained what we had to do and we ran into some issues, but here is a recap. The lab we had to do was just recreate some position vs. time graphs and record what the velocity vs. time graph was that correlated with the former. This process was also flipped for part of the experiment. Some issues we ran into included the fact that at first our motion sensor wouldn't register our movement. It was, however, a very simple mistake that we made. We had the sensor motioned above us, so instead of it being paraell to us it went straight over our heads.
      After that little hick-up was fixed we started working. Initally, I was on top of everything. I the speed at which an object is moving in relationship to a reference point. If the distance gets smaller then there is no increase in distance from the reference point and is therefore negative. understood the graphs that we had to make, what they meant, and how each graph correlated with eachother. However, that is until we came to a graph that was coming twords y axis and not away from it. I had the right line (a simple horizontal line), but I misplaced it in relationship to the axis. Instead of it being above the axis it was now below it. That was my first mistake. I did quickly learn from that mistake and it does make sense. This is bcause velocity is no more than
      Then  everything continued to  move along just fine, until we came to another graph, where my graph turned out to be wrong. In this graph the line went in a positively linear fashion, then went in a horizontal line across the graph, and finally came down in a linear fashion. My guess was that the velocity graph would first go straight across the gaph above the horizontal axis, then go even with the axis, and finally dip down below the axis. My thinking was that there should have been no transition between speeds, because the changes were simetaniously, however, this theory was challenged by one of my groups members. She said that there would be a slight trasition between speeds. I will admit that I was very stubborn and would not give into that theory. In factm it took four different sets of data to finally convince me.  In the end though, I did agree with her.
      Next, there was the rest of the graphs. They again went extremely smooth, and I understood the concepts just fine. Although, that's were I ran into another problem this time with my goals from last week. Once I understood the consepts I start to dominate the lab, and that's a problem, but, instead of just giving the answers away, I asked a lot of questions that I thought would lead them to the answer. This seemed to aggravate some of my group members though, and I can't blame them. After all, when our teacher does that to us I hate it.
       After that, a rarity happened. We actually had homework. It was again extremely simple and was based on the lab that was done that day. The only expetion were three questions at the bottom, and the only confusing one was number three. It asked what "what does the area below a time vs. a velocity graph tell you about the motion of an object". The funny part was that none of us at my table had gotten that question either, so Mr. B had to actually explain it to us. It turned out to be very simple. The answer was "how much distance an object travels in a set amount of time". The way Mr. B. showed us was with one of our standards, naming the units of a graph, along with a simple problem of dimesnsional analysis.
     On the next day there was a plus delta on the whole class, and the main points I was thinking were brought up. A couple of pluses that was brought up was the fact that Mr. B is extremely nice and does care about our learning. We also like how he lets us learn from our mistakes and lets us redo tests accordingly. Then, some of the deltas was the fact that Mr. B. never gives us any conformation/negation to our findings. We dilike how he doesn't really give us any type of guidance in the conversation. That leads us into a circle and we never have a set answer to the question. He says that the reason he doesn't really give us too much guidance is because when he isn't at school he wants us to carry on class as usual. He also says that most of our classes will be run by the kids and that we will have to come to the realizations not have the teachers say too much, therefore we better learn now. Finally, some of the toss ups included the fact that he gives us room to learn, isn't a dictator, and these blogs. These we toss ups because there are good things to them and bad. For instance, its good that he doesn't control our every move but bad because we can't focus, and the blogs organize our thoughts but they are so time consuming, and there was a huge negative feeling to the blog buddies too.

 

     After the plus/ delta, there was the discussion on the lab itself. Here we talked mainly about motion maps. This was particulary helpful to me because I did not understand how to do a motion map to begin with. It turns out they are just a bunch of arrows going in a direction to represent where an object is going in relationship to a reference point. It also shows the speed the object is at. For instance, short arrows means a slow speed and a long arrow means fast. After that, we learned that dots meant that there is no movement at all. Finally, we got to what each line means. For instance, a velocity graph with a negative horizontal line means  that the object is moving twords the reference point, a positive horizontal line means that the object is moving away from the object, a straight line going along the x axis means that there is no movement. A current theory I have is that a smooth curve line would have a gradually building speed. That would be something else to consider testing also. The one thing I do want to change though, is the fact that in these discussions there are really only three people talking (and no it is not me). Mr. B. has heard this issue before and addressed us about it. We even went as far to say that those three people couldn't really talk, but it still happen. Also, there were still kids getting cut off in their questions, I even had to speak up for one of them. I also never got the cahnce to ask my question of "why do we use rays in motion maps and not something else". I know I did talk to Mr. B about this and suggested that part of the problem is that most kids weren't comforatable just shouting out things and sit quietly/raise hands. Therefore, by actually calling on kids with hands raised would help that problem tremendously.However, therewas a partial plus to all this madness. With having the three kids tone it down a little we did hear from other people more so.

 

Everything put together

The Endless Worksheet

This week was a relatively slow week again. This time we did three things. The first (and longest) thing was go over our homework, which was very easy to do, however, the conversation that came from it, not so much. The conversation focused on explaining two graphs and each meant. For instance, do the two cyclist start at the same point, who is traveling faster, are their velocities the same ever, and what is happening at 5 seconds (no, cyclist A, no, they are at the same position). These questions were again easy to answer because most the we just had to look at the graph. However, some discrepancies came into play on the first graph. For instance, is velocity and speed the same thing? This question stumped most of us, and even at the end of the day we never really came to a conclusion. This is because speed=distance/time and we thought so did velocity. Then, the argument for them not being the same was the fact that velocity has a set direction. That was then compared to speed and how it is connected to position, which, as mentioned before has many dimensions. This theory isn't necessarily the most accurate, though. This is because according to some additional research  velocity is constantly being compared to is position from the starting point and speed is merely how fast an object moves. It is sort of like mass and weight, while on the streets everyone uses them interchangably they are completely different. Here is an article to further explain the difference between velocity and speed...  http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/1dkin/u1l1d.cfm

After that little snafu, there was another discussion on whether slope actually meant speed/velocity (the slash is because we still weren't sure which one applied here). Most of us thought that yes it was directly related to speed, however, that theory was tested when we noticed on the second graph that it had a negative slope. We thought this because the graph showed change in distance/ change in time which is the equation for speed. The negative slope was confusing but manageable because of the discussion from last week. This is because we assumed that the reference point from which the bicyclists started from was fixed and therefore each bicyclists was traveling in opposite directions in order for bicyclist A to loose distance. That led to the conclusion that the speed is just the absolute value of the slope. That is because even though bicyclist A lost distance is had to loose distance at some rate (i.e. speed).

After a whole day spent on checking the worksheet came the discussion on our blogs. Now, this doesn't really have much to do with physics so here was our conclusions in a nut shell. We will have to read two peoples blog every week, comment on them using the acronym NICE (new ideas, improvements, complement, and explanation), and we will rotate every month- progress report. This whole idea was to see other people's point-of-view and to improve our own blogs. I do believe that this will help us tremendously, as it is I hope the people who have been reading these blogs consistently will see some differences as the year progresses.

Finally, we ended the week with trying to do a lab. Now, this lab wasn't a traditional one, we never really got to finish and we had to try and use a motion sensor to recreate these graphs. This was inspired by the worksheet from Monday. Now, there were some very difficult points for my group, because not only were we missing a person but we also couldn't get the sensor to work. We connected it the computer the right way but no matter what we couldn't get a reading off of it. We tried a total of 5 times and only one test produced actual results. Also, the results we got weren't what we expected. I just hope that Wednesday will be better...

On another note here are some things I want to try to do. To begin with I need to try to stop explaining things and learn to be quiet more so, especially when it comes to predictions. This is something that my teachers have been stressing and it is extremely difficult, especially in science. I know to most people in my class notice I rarely talk, but in smaller groups I talk way too much. I also need to work on listening to other people's ideas more so. I currently listen to the people but not as intently as I should. Finally, I need to try and make blog more interesting/ fresh. I hope I will get some ideas from some of the other blogs I will be reading.

Entry 4: week 5

The Fiestas 
     This week we had science two classes, and not a lot went on the first day, other than I flunked a test. Apparently, it isn't that difficult to miscount if you are under pressure. It's not that I didn't know how to convert the units it's just I got really panicky towards the end. However, the funny part is I did best on the stuff I thought I royally messed up on, that would be estimating/using powers of 10. I got only one wrong there, but on the super easy converting of like units and unlike units (i.e. metric to metric, standard to standard, and metric to standard) I only got three right. There was a small light at the end of the tunnel though, I can retest on that material and I know where I went wrong.
     On the same note of tests, we got our second test back on Tuesday. I did much better, getting all threes except on one standard. It had to do with identifying a directly proportional equation that was not linear. My first instinct was a linear equation, but the directions excluded that one, therefore I put an inversely proportional graph instead. In retrospect I now see how that is wrong, an inverse equation never even touches the axises and goes up down on one axis and up on the other, both of which contradict the definition of a proportional graph. The answers I could have put down could include a quadratic or exponential graph. The hard part of this mess of though was that both of these were in my notes and in my blog post from two weeks ago. I am kicking myself for not remembering that...

Pre-lab
On the second day we finally got out of our lecturing/discussion rut and did a lab. This lab was aimed at the relationship between the position of a buggy from a fixed point and how long it ran. We did however have an introduction to this concept on Tuesday. This was when our teacher kept having us explain were he was in relation to a fixed tile. From this we learned that a person can't just say "seven tiles from the counter", they have to give the distance the object moved, the direction it moved in, and it should be done in three different dimensions. It also showed that without a reference point it is very difficult to notice movement. Finally, the discussion also produced two definitions:

Reference point: A fixed object that is used to describe were another object is.

Position: Where an object is in relationship to the reference point and how the object moved, is oriented, and where the object is in relationship to other objects/space.

These definitions helped us in the lab that we did the next day.

The set-up

     In the lab that was done on Thursday we first had to measure how far a buggy traveled in a set amount of time in relationship to its starting position. Now, there was a lot of grey areas that the teacher let us to decide. For instance, how to measure the actual distance, where we measured on the car, how  many intervals of time we had, and how fast our buggy was going. Each of these factors were different from each group. For instance, while most groups used a piece of tape and premeasured the lengths my group decided to mark where the buggy was as it rode down the hallway. Another difference was the speed of the buggy. There was a pretty even split between the fast setting and the slow setting (I was in a slow group). The only thing that the class did consistently was measure the front of the buggy. We later found out though that we should have measured the back end. This is because every time the group had to mark the buggy's position we had to partially stop it which skewed our data.
        After the base line data was collected the next step was actually different from group to group. For instance, my group had to just redo the same experiment as mentioned above, but with the buggy going at top speed. Then there was another group who just had to alter the starting point.
    
The results
      At the end of the day we just put  the data on the whiteboards. This was extremely difficult for my group because we took a lot longer to just the equations. This is because instead of measuring the full length the buggy traveled we measured the distance from point to point. Therefore we had to convert those findings into an accumulative distance. In the end my group got an equation of y=6.4*x+.6 for the slow run. The equation above got an r squared value of .9999 and our five percent rule was .1%. This equation was also very consistent with other equations from other groups too. Then, on the fast test we got an equation of y=25*x+23.2. This had an r squared value of .9996 and a 5% rule of only 1%.  The only issue was that this test seemed to have been different from the other equations.
     In all the results from our version of the experiment seems really conclusive. The statement of  "if the buggy is going at a set speed then its position will increase proportionately" is supported a lot, however, all conclusions should be saved for after the whole class shares their findings.

Things that could be improved
We could try and improve how we actually measure the distance car went by using some high tech in order to eliminate the systematic error which was rampant throughout the experiment. A way to accomplish this is by having sensors that are synchronized with a timer mark how far the buggy ahs gone. We also might want to replace the batteries after each test in order to get the same amount of power from test to test. Finally, the path of the buggy should be fixed with the addition of some barriers.

 

Entry 3: week 4

Overview:
This week we expanded on the rest of our standards, which included estimating powers of ten, converting metric/non-metric units, and we did something that wasn't on our list, which was learn about dimensional analysis. We learned these concepts with lectures and some more white boarding.

The week in detail:
This week my hour was lucky because even though we switched days only once (because of some field trips) we still had science twice (the people who have science on B days has it only once). Now that's not to say that we caught up to those people. That was because the momentum that we gained last class was pretty much non-existent this time. That meant the first day was almost wasted by constant talking, which seemed to upset the teacher (not that I can blame him). Therefore he moved seats in the second class. This seems like it  really helped so far. The group I'm paired with also seems to be really good with understanding the concepts, we just need to come out of our shells and begin to talk. That was pretty much the last social change of the week.

Day 1:

During this day we again didn't really get all that much done. All we did was go over the non-metric stuff, that included pounds, grams, inches, and so forth. I learned very quickly that the metric system is the way to go. That is because with the English system there are very weird conversion rates that aren't constant and off the wall. For instance, two cups equals one pint, four pints equals one quart, and four quarts equals one gallon. Even though it was a little confusing, that wasn't the only problem that I personally had. Another issue that was only had to do with me was the fact that after a while I was convinced that I had the answer that I closed out all other theories and logic. However, that wasn't the worst the part. The worst was when I discovered that I confused the conversion rates. That was a very humiliating time for me and I hope I never shut our all logic that again.

Another thing that we learned was this thing called dimensional analysis. It is an easier way to organize our thoughts when it came to converting multiple/ unlike units. This method involved listing all of the units and conversion factors, canceling out some units, and multiplying all of the numbers together. This seems complicated but in actuality is was quite simple. I mean my math teacher in 6th grade already taught us this.

Day 2:
On this day there was of course the move, which I had been  looking forward to for a long time. In addition to that there was the standards which we learned. It was how to estimate things using the powers of ten. This lesson was slightly difficult especially when the numbers were extremely close to the half-way point. Some of the actual concepts we learned were that with powers of ten there is a large difference between the degrees, even one. For instance, 10 to the 2nd power is a hundred but 10 to the 3rd power is a thousand. This realization led to our next finding, which was that powers of ten must be ranges, especially when estimating. After that, we learned that the half way point for a power of ten isn't 5 but it is 3.16.... and just keeps of going. That took most of us by surprise.

After we learned how to estimate we had real world questions. For instance, "how many basketballs would fit in the gym"? We of course used dimensional analysis, conversion rates, and all of the other skills we learned yesterday, but there was a debate about how to measure the ball itself. One person suggested that we measure the sphere like it was in a box because that is how the balls would fit into the gym, but one kid said that that method would skew the data by "skimping out" on potential room for more basketballs in an already smaller room. The other suggestion was to actually calculate the volume and estimate it accordingly. However, a lot of kids forgot that formula, which was a problem. In the end we settled by saying that the person could choose whichever method they wanted as long as there was a range given.

General likes/dislikes
I personally liked how we went through all of the conversion rates and how we handled the estimating portions. However, it seemed to me that we again went a little slow for my taste. Another thing that I liked was again the moving of seats, I believe that will help my class stay on topic a lot more. After that, another couple of things I would like to change would be keeping the far fetched problems but do a couple of real world situations. In addition to that I would like to in cooperate the use of half powers too. That would have made the calculations much easier. Finally, I liked how the teacher said just run with the problem and good luck. He left it up to the class to decide how to do the problems.

Entry 3: week 4

Overview of the week:
Well this week was the week. We finally finished talking about all of our lab-o-rama labs. We did this by having only two groups white-board a particular lab. The progress of getting stuff done was also due to the fact that my class was actually able to focus on what they were doing, coupled with the fact that my teacher also set  some more boundaries it was inevitable. Lets just hope we can keep this up...

Specific views of the Labs:

The first lab was the pendulum lab. In that lab we had to find out the relationship of a pendulum's period (how long it takes to swing back and forth one time) and the mass on the pendulum. My first graph

suggested that no line would fit the data. However, that idea was challenged when two other groups found that a straight line going across the x axis fit that data extremely well. One culprit I can think of that effected my results was that I had used extremely small units on my Y axis and as a  result everything looked scattered, but the other groups did a much broader scale of .5 seconds instead of .1. That seemed to really help. Just this realization of what type of correlation took us a long time because we could not decide the name of the relationship. It turned out that there was no relationship. That led us to dicuss how many times we retsted the data, just because it seemed like something had to be wrong. Finally, we tried to come up with a 5% rule for that data but no conclusion was made.

Next, was the tile lab. In this lab we had to find the correlation of a piece of carpet's mass and its area. The discussion that took place in this lab was extremely difficult for me to participate in because my group did not get to that lab. This lab did however produce something interesting. One group had a polynomial graph and the other had a linear one. In addition to that issue, the group with the polynomial equation had a small outlier, that raised some questions. To find a solution we disscussed eaxh graph extensively, talking about the correlation coefficient, 5% rule, and common sense. Each correlation coefficient each was relatively close, 95% or higher, but the same could not be said for each group's 5% rule. Both groups had a high percentage, being within tenths of the cut off amount.
The linear result was however very slightly lower. The final nail in the polynomial vs. linear coffin came with common sense. My class did not expect a quadratic result, it didn't make sense that the mass would increase so sharply as time went on. It also didn't make sense for a negative amount of carpet (which is already impossible) to have the same mass as a physical piece of carpet. This lead us to the conclusion a of a linear correlation between the area and surface mass of the carpet.  The slope was .19 and the y-intercept was .18. As for the outlier in the polynomial group, that was said to be the result of rushing, which also could have caused them to have a polynomial.

Finally, there was my group's lab, the lever lab. In this lab we had to find the distance from the fulcrum that it would take for varying amounts of mass to balance 300 grams of mass 10 centimeters from the pivot point. This lab discussion was interesting because while my group got an exponential equation I got an inverse equation (this was in addition to the other groups findings which was also an inverse equation). This led to a bunch of discussions, the main one being "who was right". The reasoning for not using the power graph was 1: it wouldn't make sense for the distance to go up that fast, 2; the teacher said that there are very few equation in nature that are exponential, 3: the majority of the class got an inverse equation. Other factors that suppoted an inverse equation include the correlation coefficient on Wed, and common sense. Therefore, the general consensus was that the inverse equation was right. That isn't to say that there wasn't other topics that we talked about. Some include whether my equation was equivilant to the other inverse eqaution (the other group did thiers in inches, mine was in centimeters). It did however indeed match up. Then we discussed  a weird variable in power equation, e. It apparently is a number that appears in nature a lot and is like pi. Finally, we talked about what the end of an inverse line is called. It is called something like an assemetope (this is spelled phonetically because I do not have a spelling for it). We also learned the actual line of an inverse graph is called a hyperbola.

Other things we did.
After that we went over our first"fiesta" ,test,(I know I should have mentioned last week test but I had a bit of a brain fart). In the first test I did pretty well, getting all 2s or 3s, but I did learn a lot. For instance, after the first test I realized that I must make the variables specific to the situation. I also had clarification to the types of graphs there are, like a direct linear graph or an indirect graph (one goes up on both axises and the other has each axis go in different directions). These newly learned skills I took into the next fiesta, and as a result I think I finally got the other standards up to 3s. Finally, after the testing there was a PowerPoint on another standard we have to learn, and that was

conversions. For the most part it was all review, and that might be why I fell to the dark side and started to do stupid things like make towers with markers. That did however change when the teacher put up a measurement with the abbreviation of M. I was at such a loss, and started to panic a little. That is until he gave us the answer, which was that it stood for "mega". For me that was a new measurement and it was the equivalent of 1000 "kilos". That madness apparently went on higher, and that is something I know I must study before the next test.