Unit 2 Reflection!

Wait... what! We've finished another unit! ALREADY! Where is the time going? Mrs. Lawrence that should be the next question we handle, where is the time?

As much as I hate to say it, I'm not sad to see this unit go, too much math for my tastes and it was really confusing. Nevertheless, I'll try to summarize it in a manner that makes more sense than the unit did to me. It's going to be intense, are you ready? Alright, let's go.

Fade In: Unit Two of the Asheville School Physics experience. First order of business, Newton's Second Law.

Newton’s second law states that force is directly proportional to acceleration and mass is inversely proportional to acceleration.

 a=f/m

From Newton's Second Law we found our way to Free Fall (excluding air resistance of course). 

An object in free fall has a constant acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2 (or 10 as we used it). 

LAB TIME: We used this nifty number to calculate the height of third Anderson by dropping a ball multiple times from the third floor and taking the average time it took to reach the ground. We then used that average time and using the equation d=1/2gt^2 solved for the distance of the building. My group was the most accurate, we found, because we did not throw out any data that seemed too high or too low, a good lesson for future lab projects!

And then it started to get funky and this little villain called math came in and crushed my physics hopes and dreams. Alright, maybe that's a bit dramatic, but Projectile Motion sure caused some grief.Projectile motion is the term used when something is pushed with a force and is thrown through the air. For example: When an airplane drops supplies over a troubled area. It is important to remember that projectile motion uses both horizontal and vertical motion and that objects in projectile motion travel in a parabolic path (like a Parabola!)

Horizontal motion: constant velocity 

V=D/T

Vertical motion: constant acceleration

 d=1/2gt^2

And finally, duh duh duh..... AIR RESISTANCE. Air Resistance is the force exerted by the air on a falling object to balance out the force of speed and acceleration. As an object falls, air resistance increases with speed and decreases with acceleration until the object reaches terminal velocity (or equilibrium where all the forces are equal and opposite).  

Air Resistance: Fnet/m=a.

As I stated in the beginning, the most difficult challenge I faced in this Unit was the math part, math and science don't translate well together for me. So I hit a lot of problems in that.

I'm still working to overcome this disconnect and I hope throughout the year I will get better at this!

So THAT'S why I can never hit it right!

(or the Unit 2 Voicethread, but who wants that as the title?)

Why hello, it seems you've stumbled upon something suspicious, me, holding a gun. WAIT! WHAT!? But why?

 For the sake of Physics of course!

In this unit, we've been learning about what objects do when affected by different types of motion: Free Fall, Free Fall with Air Resistance, and even Newton's second law. But the thing I've found most difficult to understand (and hope to understand better by explaining it to you) is what an object does when thrown at an angle. 

We've had two examples in class of what happens when things are fired out of guns: The example we did in Ms. Cianciulli's class of shooting you, our dear Mrs. Lawrence in the face (it was pretty gruesome when you think about it). And the man attempting to tranquilize the monkey and what happens if the monkey lets go of the branch he is sitting on (provided the man is firing straight at the monkey).

But I wanted something I was familiar with, and so here I am shooting a weapon of in the distance on an Idaho farm. Though I was aiming my sight dead ahead to the center of the target, I missed the coveted bull's eye every time and now, because of this class, I understand why! Objects travel in a parabolic trajectory, like an arc, meaning they fall lower than they start. Therefore, when the bullet is fired out of the gun it lands below the sight, so in order to get an accurate shot, I would have to aim a bit higher so that when the bullet falls it hits dead enter.

And I'm Free Falling

Yep, that's right, I found a physics Free Fall Video to the tune of Tom Petty's Free Falling. GENIUS.
This video was helpful simply because it was catchy, I was familiar with the original song, as most of you are. (and if not, you should go listen to it anyways) and so memorizing the basics of free fall to it's tune made it stick in my mind instantly.

Vertical Motion is ESSENTIAL to free fall!
 is one of the biggest points the song makes and it's also one of the biggest things I have had trouble remembering, so now, when I sit in class and we talk about Free Fall, one of the first things to my mind is Vertical Motion. Although if you notice me humming in class, I promise you it's about physics!

I vote THIS for our next class (RESOURCE TIME)

Mrs. Lawrence, you're pretty cool as teachers go, truly. But this teacher, she just may have you beat, I vote this be added into your Newton lesson plans.

Though the video covers all three of Newton's laws, it helped me especially in the second one. I love the way she states the relationship between acceleration, force, and mass. It was catchy, and it helped me remember the basics of what we've covered, I can't get it out of my head!