Jez's Blog

Newton's laws of motions, and frictions, are everywhere in our daily life. Let me give you an example:

Last Friday was HIS' field trip to Leofoo Village amusement park. Let's pick on Newton's 1st law of motions, 'an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force,' as an example: The first ride that Grace, my partner, and I went on was 'Volcano Adventure' (if u translate it from Chinese into English). How did Newton's 1st law of motions apply on the ride? Well it might be hart to see because everything was in controled by machines. However, the most obvious observation was that in the end of the ride, Grace leant foreward when the boat stopped; and the reason why was because that while the boat was stopped by the machine, there was no other force to stop Grace and mine motions of moving foreward.

Further, the ride on 'Volcano Adventure' was also an example for both kinetic friction, and static friction. When the static energy was greater than the kinetic energy, the speed of the boat slowed down. Which was what happened when the boat was stopping in the end of the ride. I think the machine had somehow increased the static friction between the track and the bottom of the boat, and then caused it to stop eventually. Also, in addition, I wonder if when the boat was sliding down from the ramps, its kinetic friction increases because when it slid down from the ramps, its speed increased. However, again, it's hard to prove this point from this case because everything was in controled by mashines. Hwo knows if they also controled the speed of the boats or not?

P.S. LeoFoo Village was FUNNN!! :D

On the SMASH Day of the 4th of March, our task to build a tallest possible tower out of clay and toothpicks. We were instructed to draw a sketch of the design for the tower of our own teams, before we started to build our towers. Which was quite an important part of the scientific method because it gave you an idea of what you shall do next before you move on. However, we usually neglected it because we usually thought that we already had an idea of what we shall do in our head; or perhaps, sometimes we just wanted to try and see what happens.

Personally, I think that drawing sketches may be important, but not quite useful. Our team failed on the task, even though we've drawn a sketch of the design for our tower before we started to built it. Therefore I think sometimes you should just try different things as you move on; well, at least that's what we (my team) did at the end. We changed our original tower design a bit so that it could be built taller without collapsing. The reason of why we changed our design was because that our tower seemed to fall apart when we tried to follow our original design. And so, although we failed the task, we've learned another problem solving skill, which is to think of another solution when the original one was not working. :D

We all live in the yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine...

During last Tuesday's SMASH day, our mission was to build a periscope to see what's inside a box, which was placed on the table, from under the table. The materials for building the periscope were papers, card boards, scissors, tapes, and 4 mirrors.

Personally, I think this was the hardest SMASH day mission so far! Even though we've tried and kept on trying, for 1 hour. We kept changing the design of our periscope, and experimenting to see if it worked. But eventually, we still failed the mission. Oh, well, actually we semi-failed the mission because we could see inside the box, it's just that we couldn't recognize what the things were. I wonder if it was because the mirrors in our periscope were placed in a wrong way so they weren't reflecting effectively. :[

During today's SMASH day, we did an activity which each group had to get their marbles, passing point-stickies, and into a cup at the end. There are point-stickies of 10 and 15 points, placing randomly on the table. During the activity, we could use anything to block, bounce, or lead the marble to the point-stickies. However, in one condition, we have 2 chances but could only flick the marble twice in each role -- flicking only.

I was a critical thinker and an effective communicator while participating the activity. It's because that first of all, we had to think of a way to get the marble passing as many point-stickies and get as many points as possible; and secondly, we were working in groups, in which communicating was a really important skill for us to succeed the task. For some specific example of how I showed that I was a critical thinker and an effective communicator is that I've been thinking how the marble would bounce if I put the plastic cardboard in a certain position, and then I discussed with my group mates about my ideas, then finally we tried if it worked together.


- http://www.5025488.net/bbs/thread-14508-1-4.html [Picture. Copied by Jez. 5th of Jan. 2009]

Today was a SMASH Day. Our challenge was to build a tower out of 5 pieces of A4 paper and 2 meters of tape. The tower had to be as tall as possible, and it also had to able to hold 15g on top of it.

Our group, Savanna and I, won the challenge. Our tower was 83cm tall, and it was the only one that has successfully hold 15g on top of it. In this challenge, I think the most important skill that we'd used was balancing. At the very beginning of the task, both Savanna and I were only thinking about how to make the base of the tower. It's because that both of us knew that the base of the tower is the most important part of keeping the entire tower steady and balanced.


The tower that we made sort of looked like a plunger. It's base was much wider than the other parts of the tower. The reason why we made the base so wide was because that the larger the area of the base was touching the surface of the table, the more steady and balanced the tower would be.












However, there were also other skills that we've used during the task, which was the 'combining skills'. You might ask: What did you mean by 'combining skills'?? Well.. what I meant was basically the skills of combining different parts of the tower. These skills were also very important because different combining skills could prevent the disconnection of different parts of the tower. For instance, instead of only using tapes to tape every parts of the tower together, we cut a hole and stuck the cylinder of the tower into its base so that they were better connected with each other.

As a result, balancing was certainly important in this challenge. You'd have to keep every parts of the tower balanced, including its base, its body, and its top plane where you put the weights on at the end. Also, the combining skills were anther important thing to consider. You'll need different combining skills to make the tower even more steady while it's balanced.


- http://www.3dnuts.com/tutorials/modeling_plunger.shtml
[Picture of plunger. Copied by Jez Lee. 4th of Nov. 2008]

Why do things sink when everything else is floated? Well, I think it's because that somethings are heaver, or denser than the other things. Things that are heaver or denser will sink, and on the other hand, things that are lighter or less dense will float.

I wonder if 'heaver' can be the other word for 'denser' because from the experiment that we've done in science class, I found out that the pink liquid is actually lighter or less dense than the clear liquid, but the clear liquid is on the layer above the pink liquid, with the yellow liquid in the middle. However, I didn't test if the yellow liquid mattered on keeping the clear liquid on the upper layer, in which I think it does matter. I'd only tested that if there's a larger amount of clear liquid on top of the pink liquid, would it kind of like pressing down the pink liquid and keep it at the bottom, and it does, the clear liquid did keep the pink liquid at the bottom of the graduated cylinder. And what I've been thinking is that when the object has a larger amount than the other object, its density will be more than such object, in which also means heaver?

Anyways, the other part of the experiment that we've done in science class was putting different object into the graduated cylinder with the colour liquids in it (like the picture above), and see what happened. The result was that some objects floated while some other objects sank, and some objects even floated in the middle of the liquids. I think this appearance is due to the density of the liquids and the objects that were thrown into the liquids. I think the reason why certain objects floated to the top of the liquids was because those objects were less dens than the liquids, and for those object that sank directly to the bottom of the liquids were the ones that were denser than the liquids, and moreover, for those objects that floated in the middle of the objects, were the ones that have about the same density with the liquids.

Do I think the mixed liquid will be separated on Monday? Yes, I think it will be separated on Monday. The liquids with less dense will float towards the surface while the denser liquids sink towards the bottom of the graduated cylinder.

Rock is matter, water is matter, steam is matter.. Even you and I are matters as well! But what is matter?

Matter, is something that has volume (takes up space) and mass. Matter can be in 3 kinds of statements, which are solid, liquid and gas. There are loads of things that are considered as matters.. And now that you know how to manage whether or not a thing is matter, here's the question, IS AIR MATTER?

Air is in a state of gas, and according to the experiment Mrs.Smith has done during the class, which was blowing a balloon in a bottle with and with out a whole on the bottle. We proved that air does have volume (take up spaces). The balloon has gone bigger only when there was a whole on the bottle. Which means that the space in the bottle has already been taken by the air in the bottle, therefore, the balloon wasn't able to expend if there's no whole on the bottle to let the air in the bottle float out.


Okay, now that air has already fit in with 2 out of the 3 conditions of matter. The last condition is mass, does air has mass? According to the experiment, The balloon that is fulled with air is heaver than the balloon that is not fulled with air. Which has proven that air do have mass.









Therefore, as the result, is air matter?
The answer is, YES IT IS.


- http://wow.osu.edu/experiments/gases/airhasmass.html
[Picture of the experiment. Copied by Jez Lee. 23th of Sep. 2008]