Working in the car = Bad idea

The NYT is doing a whole series on distracted driving. This time, it's talking about people who try to get office work done in the car.

Also, props to Noah, who found a link to the Distracted Driving Summit, which is taking place now.

Wednesday's Class

Today in class we started to take notes on inertia. We did an experiment where we put a block of dry ice on a level ramp. When the ramp was perfectly level, the dry ice did not move. We then set up a motion sensor at one end of the ramp, and pushed the dry ice towards it. The block of dry ice moved at a constant velocity towards the motion sensor and had an acceleration of 0. We began to talk about forces, and what forces were acting on the block of ice. We determined that the gravitational of the earth was acting on the block of ice, as was the force of the hand that was pushing against the ice. For the second half of class, we worked on our texting projects.

Friday's class

First we split up into groups of two and we created 2 witeboards per group. The first was a constant velocity board and the second was a constant accerlation board. for each board we drew a velocity vs. time graph and a position vs. time graph. For both graphs we wrote an equation and then desctiribed the equations with words. Then we can together as a class to discuss these boards. For the second half of class we worked on our texting while driving projects.

Get 3 months in jail for texting while driving in Utah

Here's a great story from NPR that describes the efforts states are taking to stop texting while driving.

Utah Tackles Texting And Driving Problem Head-On

Interesting article on Truckers Texting

The NYT has a fascinating piece on big rig truckers insisting that they be exempt from any legislation on texting while driving.

More resources for studying

I've put up the unit 2 review sheet solutions. You can find them here:

Unit 2 Review Solutions

I also made a few videos that might be helpful

1. Doing the Ch3 (mislabeled) self assessment
2. Reading a position vs time graph
3. Reading a velocity vs time graph

Wednesday, September 23

Today, we started off class with looking at a constant position vs. time graph. We read the graphs to find the velocity and the acceleration at a certain point. If the line(the object) is moving towards the origin, there is a positive velocity. If the line(the object) starts out positive then becomes zero, there is a negative acceleration. If the slope<0, there is negative acceleration. When there is a constant negative velocity, this indicates that the object has turned around. Also, when trying to find if there is negative or positive displacement in the graph, if the area of the negative slope is bigger than the positive, there is a negative displacement. Afterwards, we put what we had just learned to the test and worked on a worksheet on reading kinematic graphs. On the worksheets, we found acceleration/velocity using position vs. time graphs. If the slope is constant there is a constant acceleration. If there is a positive slope, there is a positive acceleration. And if there is a negative slope, there will be negative acceleration. SLOPE=ACCELERATION. We then used velocity graphs to find the position vs. time and the acceleration of the object.
Tomorrow, we have an assessment on Unit 2:Constant Acceleration.

P.S.~Friday's blogger is Melissa

A great bio in the NYT, and some AWESOME pics

The NYT has a wonderful feature on Carolyn Porco, head of camera team of
the Cassini space probe which was launched to study Saturn.



You've got to see some of the images (click on the image to see at full resolution):

Unit 2 Review

Is Unit 2 Review still due tomorrow?

Finding distance covered after acceleration

I am confused about how to calculate how much distance a car has traveled after x amount of time, accelerating at a constant rate.

Here is the question:

A car traveling with an initial velocity of 20 m/s accelerates at a constant rate of 3 m/s² for a time of 4 seconds.

What distance does the car travel during this process?

I found the velocities after each second and added them together, but webassign said it was wrong. Please help. thanks

* also, does anyone know how to do #13 on the webassign review?

How to review for unit 2 assessment

We're approaching an assessment this Thursday, and with no class on tuesday, you should not wait until Wednesday to begin reviewing. Here are my suggestions.

1. Begin by reading over the Unit 2 Major Concepts Sheet. Circle any concepts you are unclear on, and email questions to the blog.
2. Make sure you are comfortable solving all the problems on MOP 26—this is a nice review of constant acceleration model, which is one of the more difficult concepts in this unit.
3. Do the problems in the Unit II review. I will post solutions on wednesday.
4. After that, go back to the Major Concepts sheet and try to figure out which problems from MOP 26 and Unit 2 review test which concepts.

Class on Friday

On Friday, we had a double period. We started off our invigorating class by going over our OMG/NBD texting project. We then broke into our groups and worked on the lab for a little while, but we soon came back together as a class to go over our finding. We figured out that the speed, distance and reaction times are figured up together create alarming results! When you are going 60 miles per hour and slam on the breaks, your care goes an extra eight and a half meters compared to if you had slammed on the breaks without the extra time it took to react. This is the difference between falling off of the 14th Street Bridge, or more realistically hitting someone. Here is a PSA that has been shown in England for a couple of weeks.

Enjoy!

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--
John Riley | CEO, John Riley IT
www.johnrileyIT.com | 404.545.7438
User-friendly, turn-key IT solutions

How to submit assignments electronically

A few of you have been emailing me assignments, and while this as been great, I'm realizing that keeping track of these assignments is difficult, given the number of emails I am getting, so I'm setting up this process for submitting work. If you plan to submit an assignment via email (and I encourage you to do so, I ask you follow these guidelines:

1. Submit a readable document (I can read all versions of word, open office, pages, excel, etc). If you write your stuff in something crazy like wordperfect 1.0, email beforehand to make sure I can read it. If I can't open the document, YOUR GRADE IS ZERO, AND WILL REMAIN THAT UNTIL YOU SUBMIT A READABLE ASSIGNMENT (AND YOU WILL SUFFER A LATE PENALTY).
   
   
2. Follow the following convention for naming your document:
   "Period number Last Name First Initial Assignment title. " So Bob Smith, submitting his texting paper from 7th period would title his document: "7 Smith B Texting Letter" without the quotes. Do not name the assignment unrecognizable things like "texting paper" or "stupid physics assignment." (you might lose points for the second one).
   
   
3. If you got an extension from me in advance, please copy and paste my response to your request into the body of your email to me.
   
   
4. Follow the same convention for your subject line that you do for naming the document. "7 Smith B Texting Letter."
   
   
5. Email your attachment, FROM YOUR WMS Account (or otherwise easily recognizable email, not laxgirl17@aol.com) to the following addresses (add these addresses to your address book):
   
   For 1st period: jburkWMS+1stper@gmail.com
   
   For 3rd period: jburkWMS+3rdper@gmail.com
   
   For 7th period jburkWMS+7thper@gmail.com
   
   

Thank you in advance for following this procedure. It will greatly simplify my record keeping, and will allow me to return assignments to you more quickly. AS a reward for submitting your assignments following this procedure, I will give +1 point bonus for all assignments submitted using these procedures (you can resubmit if you've already submitted). In the future, I might deduct points for submitted assignments that do not follow this procedure.

Thursday's class - Caroline Hufford

On Thursday, we did the speeding up and slowing down lab with the whole class and Mr. Burk. Before we did the lab, though, Mr. Burk asked us how you knew if you were moving towards or away from the origin. After drawing a graph, we saw that if position and velocity have opposite signs, then you are moving towards the origin. We then did the lab. There were lots of different examples of what would happen if you changed the position of the car and of the motion sensor. What it came down to was that if velocity and acceleration have opposite signs, that means the object is slowing down. If velocity and acceleration have the same signs, the object is speeding up. On Thursday we also learned how to find the displacement of an object whose position doesn't start at 0 m. The position of the object equals the initial position plus the initial velocity times time plus half acceleration times time, squared. Or, (change in)

x = xo + Vot + 1/2at^2. This is the model for the position at any time of an object with constant acceleration. If you have a constant velocity however, x = xo + Vot.

Brian Greene Explains String Theory and Extra Dimensions

Here's a great video of the world's best dressed physcist, professor Brian Green, describing string theory, extra dimensions and lots of other cool stuff.

How to blog

I finally had a spare moment to put together a short jing on how to blog, and a couple of other neat features of the website. Check them out here:

How to blog (< 2min)

How to put an equation in a blog post (< 2 min)

How to search the blog and use the class calendar (< 2min)

Texting Letter

Are we allowed to pretty much just copy and paste our Dr. Phil assignment into our texting letter for the first two paragraphs where it says we should use the info gathered from Dr. Phil, and other articles on the website?

Exploring physics of Distracted Driving #e, f

Does anyone understand how to do this? Are we using the triangle that we predicted? Thanks

Wednesday, Sept 16

Today in class we took a reassessment. Then we walked through the Speeding up and Slowing Down sheet as a class and got that done. Then we did the Exploring the Physics of Distracted Driving lab, where we tested our reaction times on the computer and typed up our data on a google spreadsheet. Then we worked on the lab some more.

Links you need for the texting project

We're going to be working on the texting project in the next few days, and you will need to use these links for your work.

• Online reaction time test: use this to measure your reaction time. (you must also measure your reaction time using the ruler test). You should post your data to the google spreadsheet so that everyone in our class can see it.
  
• NYT Distracted Driving Simulator: This is a great simulation that will tell you how your reaction time is affected by texting while driving. Please enter your data into the spreadsheet.
  
• Stopping distance: Here's a table of stopping distances that might help you to get a sesne of how far a car can travel during your reaction time.
  
• Stopping distance spreadsheet: this is a useful spreadsheet for determining your stopping distance based on a number of factors.
  
• Find your legislator. Useful for writing your letter.
  
  

Imaging the Tenth Dimension

http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php
--
John Riley | CEO, John Riley IT
www.johnrileyIT.com | 404.545.7438
User-friendly, turn-key IT solutions

September 15, 2009

Class was very fun today. We started off with reassessment #4 and then we had a great discussion about grades. Grades sheets were passed out as were an advice sheet and a few txting while drvng. project sheetings Then we did Minds On Physics page 99 Chapter 25. It was about acceleration and velocity and how they go together. It also had to do with some displacement concepts. Overall, it was a fun and productive class.

More gold from study hacks

I've already told you exactly what you need to do to ace physics (go back and read my post about how to study for a physics assessment. But maybe acing physics isn't enough for you. Maybe you want to ace all your classes, become deeply intellectually engaged by what you're learning, and change the world. Well, Study Hacks strikes again, with a great post titled "The Definitive Guide to Acing your Schedule." The post is again more aimed at college students, but easily adapted to high school, and the advice is pure gold.

Setup a separate chat with your professor, your TA, and a student who took the same course in a previous semester.
In each chat session, ask the same question:
If you were to write an advice guide about doing incredibly well in this class, what would the chapters be?


It takes around an hour to complete this exercise. But it’s results are near magical. Gone is the guesswork about notetaking, reading, and how best to review. In its place is specific advice that is tuned to the specific challenge you face. You’d have to be a real slacker not to do well with this treasure map in hand.

Ok, so you don't have a TA, but imagine if you set up a meeting during backwork with one of your teachers and you asked him/her this question. What would you learn? You might also help your teacher to think carefully about what is necessary to ace a class.

Great new album from they might be giants

Hi All,
As I mentioned in class, They Might be Giants released a great new album filled with fun songs about science this week. They've also put up a video of the first song from the album, "Science is Real." Check it out...

Class on 9/9/09

First, we took reassessment number 3. Then we went over the homework, which was the Photo Finish Followup. We analyzed velocity vs. time graphs of the buggy and cart and figured out velocities, slopes, and winners of the races. We also solved the displacement and distances of the cart and buggy races. Today we did three labs:The Stopping distance lab, the backpack lab, and the dry ice lab. In the stopping distance lab, we pushed a block of wood along the table and measured how long it took to stop and how long it was passing through the photo gate timer. We found that friction, the force of the push, the velocity and the length of the wood impacted the results. The higher the velocity, the longer it will take to stop. To find the velocity of the cart, we divided the cart's length by the time in the photogate. then we conducted the experiment and recorded the data. The experiment related to how if you are texting while driving and see something to avoid in the road, like a kid, what the distance you should allow yourself to stop depending on your current speed. The back pack lab showed that when we dropped it from a certain height, it fell at a constant rate of acceleration. The dry ice lab showed us that when it's going through sublimation, the gases coming out of the dry ice keep it off the table, causing little to no friction. This showed that it has a constant velocity and cannot stop on its own. The end

Humorous idea for the day

Luckily, in this class pain doesn't have to be your teacher.

Are you living well or preparing to live well?

Another great post from study hacks. Here's a quote:

The happiest students are those who try to shape their life into something that’s meaningful, quality, and enjoyable right now; the type who get excited about the philosophy seminar they got into, and then spend an early Fall day outside getting acquainted with the reading. These students aren’t afraid of hard work, but they keep it carefully contained, because they know there’s a lifetime more where that came from, and if they can’t handle it well now, when will they ever?



If you’re not trying to live well now, what are you waiting for?

Remember, I'm always free during backwork (or just about any other time) to talk to you about how to put these ideas into action.

Definitely worth 20 minutes of your time

No matter what your politics are, you should take 20 minutes to watch this speech by the president today about how hard work and goal setting can help you to achieve your dreams, and solve the world's problems. It's wonderful speech worth serious thought.

Thursdays Class

Thursdays class was the most important class we've ever had. We went over the history of grades and school, and we went through the process of assessing in Mr. Burk's class. Then we received our assessments and talked about them. The most we could have gotten on any concept was 3/4 and to show our full understanding, we will be assessed at the beginning of most classes until we have covered all of the concepts.

Class 9-4-09

Friday, in class, we talked about the difference in position, distance, and displacement. Position is the distance and direction from the origin. Distance is the length with no direction. Displacement is X final - X initial. There is never a negative displacement. We also talked about the photo finish lab. The buggy and the cart on the incline travel the same change in distance in the same amount of time. We discovered that our graph for the cart on the incline was a parabola. We used GeoGegbra to determine that is was a parabola. We also learned that over a very small amount of time, the velocity is nearly constant. Instantaneous velocity has 3 steps:
1. small time interval
2. time interval must be small enough so that it looks like constant velocity
3. find the average velocity of the very small change in time and you have instantaneous velocity.
We ended the double period in the computer lab working on our lab.
Anna is the next blogger.

Velocity Packet Question 2

For #19, it says to use your graph to find the distance traveled by the buggy during the entire trip. So I used the formula
v = change in position/ change in time -- and converted it to change in position = velocity/change in time.

So I did distance = 47.6 cm/s per 5 s, and got 9.52 cm ....which does not at all seem like the correct total distance for this....how should I be doing this???

Velocity Packet Question

For #18, it says to add a line representing the velocity of the buggy to the graph in #16. I made my graph for #16, but I can't figure out how to add the line representing the velocity of the buggy to my graph. How do you add the line?

Class 9/2/09

Today we had a double period. During the first period we had our first assessment. In the second period we started the "Engineering a 'Photo Finish" Lab. In class we completed Part A and for homework we have to do Part 2 through question 11. For Part A we were introduced to a new more expensive type of buggy, a car on a ramp. We had to position the ramp so that the buggy and the car reached the end of the ramp at the same times. Then we found the velocity of the buggy and graphed it on a position versus time graph. Next we guessed what the position versus time graph would look like for the car and graphed it on the same axis as the buggy. Finally we used Logger Pro and the motion detector to find more exact data on the velocity of the car. We need that data to complete the homework.

Question about photo finish lab

Does anyone know how to do number 10 on the homework? What are we supposed to draw, and do we draw it on to the graph that we printed out?

Videos you will need for the "Photo Finish Lab"

I've created a set of short, instructional screencasts on how to use excel. You will need these when we get started on the "photo finish" lab.

1. How to export data from logger pro

2. How to make a position vs time graph in excel.

3. How to find the instantaneous velocity using excel.

4. How to make a velocity vs time graph in excel.

Physics 9/1/09

Today in class we reviewed displacement. We went over how to find displacement on a time vs. velocity graph and a position vs. time graph. We also played a game to review for our assessment tomorrow. A problem was shown on the board and we all voted on what we thought were the correct answers. Then we had to convince everyone that our answer was the correct answer.