Keep that motor runnin'

... head out on the highway?

Oh c'mon, that song's a classic! Well anyways..

In class these past few days we've been learning about motors and we finally got a chance to make one!

By attaching two paperclips to a battery using a rubber-band we created the base. We attached a magnet to the top of the battery (get ready). We then coiled some copper wire and being extra careful to not lose any limbs, shaved off the tops of the sides of the wire so the current could travel. Then carefully placing the coil in the paper clips we let it spin, watching as the magnet kept it in rotation. But wait.. how was any of this possible?

The battery produced electrons that flowed through the copper wire, which, in turn, reacted to the magnetic field surrounding the magnet

 The paper clips acted as conductors and kept the coiled wire supported

The motor turned because the current carrying wire felt a force from the magnetic field

Now this may all seem kinda pointless, I mean, a spinning wire is great and all but how can it help us have easier lives?

Well if you attached fan blades to the sides of the spinning wire you'd have a fan, attach wheels and you've got a car. Now that's some physics I couldn't do without!

Wait... WHAT? (Magnetism resource)

I remember in class when we talked about how the iron in cereal could be drawn out by magnets. Naturally I just had to look that up and see if it was true. Not only does this guy prove that theory, he also goes on to show how we can use magnetism to find metal in all kinds of things. In addition to his experiments he talks a bit about different kinds of magnets and their levels of "attraction". This video blew my mind on so many different levels. Like the fact there was iron in the ink our dollar bills are printed with and therefore even they are attracted to magnets? CRAZY.

Holy Bananas! (Unit Blog Reflection)

Holy Bananas this was a long unit! And boy was it fully charged and filled with energy!

It all started with charges.

Charges are passed along but never lost

Opposite charges attract each other

 like charges repel each other

 There are three ways to charge an object: by direct contact, friction, or induction.

We can use these nifty ways to explain why our hair sticks up after we pull on a sweater (other than: because my hair hates me).

The sweater rubs against your hair when you pull it over your head and steals electrons (that little thief). The sweater becomes negatively charged and the hair becomes positively charged. Because the positive charges want to repel each other (like a brother and sister fighting over the last oreo), your hair stands up in an effort to get away from itself.

And then things really get crackling.

It’s time for lightning (no, not grease lightning you broadway buffs.)

Lightning is created when friction charges the clouds. The ground is positive and the clouds are negative. The clouds and the ground will attract each other enough that a lightning strike occurs.

            *And lightning doesn’t go down like we see it, it actually goes up!

And those funky things called lightning rods? Yeah, they don’t actually attract lightning, charges just like to gather on pointy things so if the lightning strikes it will want to go there.

And from there we hopped on the wagon and found our way to Coulombs law

Coulombs law relates electrical force and distance

                        F=k (q1q2/d^2)

Then like a current through metal we zapped our way to Conductors and Insulators

A conductor is a material through which electrical charge can travel.

(like metal!)

An Insulator is a material that is a poor conductor of electricity

This half of the unit started out with a little thing called current, which is the flow of electric charge. The rate at which these particles flow is measured in amperes. One ampere is equal to one coulomb or charge per second.

                                    *Remember: Coulombs are the standard unit of charge

Generators and batteries can work to move these particles and separate opposite charges, therefore creating a difference in voltage.

                                    *Voltage=potential

                                                Voltage is measured in volts

It is also key to remember that charges flow through a circuit and that voltage is applied across.

But wait, there’s a new man on the workforce: Electrical Shielding.

BUT

We can only talk about shielding after we talk about electric fields

An Electric Field is the area around a charge that can affect another charge

* the lines on an Electric Field determine its strength, the closer the lines are to one another the stronger the field.

Phew, now we can get to the shields and medieval jousting. Wait… these aren’t those kinds of shields… darnit.

These shields, the electric brand, protect a negative charge from feeling any force when it is surrounded by positive charges because the positive charges repel one another.

That nifty concept is why all of our electronics are in metal cases. So the delicate balance of charges isn’t upset by your static-y sweater, metal casings act as electric shields.

Bum Bum Bum. Let’s talk about relationships. Nooo, not the awkward high school ones, ut the relationship between Resistance, Current, and Voltage.

It’s a love-hate triangle.

The labs from this unit taught us that current and voltage love one another, they’re directly proportional, whereas resistance and current, they don’t like each other as much, they like to go in different directions and are inversely proportional.

Or.

I=V/R

And if all those letters weren’t confusing enough, we hopped right into DC and AC current

DC stands for Direct Current

AC Stands for Alternating Current

This unit was a struggle for me, I missed a few days due to sickness and that really hurt me. I’ve kept up with my homework but I think coming in a few mornings a week would really benefit my grade. I did, however, find this unit interesting and I felt like I learned a lot about the world around me. All in all I faced some challenges and I didn’t effectively handle them. Next unit I will work to keep up not only with homework, but with general understanding as well.  

It's Electric!

Whoa there New York City! We all know Times Square has some crazy lights, but even those go out sometimes which is why it is so important that they are wired in parallel circuits! Parallel circuits allow different screens to be unplugged or shut off without having to shut off every light or appliance they are connected too. Could you imagine having to shut down all the lights in Times Square just to change the light bulb in a restaurant?