Semester of Physics

As a long semester of physics comes to an end and finals approach right around the corner, it seems that many of the things we learned in physics are things that we all know already and use it in our everyday lives, but just never really knew. Physics has opened my eyes to how the world works and how we interact with it everyday. From relationships, kinematics, vectors, to force, momentum, and energy, everything we learned is applicable in our everyday lives. Along with that, I think that physics, as a class, has taught me to use my time wisely. With all the blog posts we had to do that were due every Sunday and all the practice assignments that were given to do the week before the due day, physics taught me that without correct and efficient time management not only will your work will be rushed but also you won't understand it. I learned that if I can improve my procrastination I can do a lot better not only in physics but in my other classes also. Physics is like chemistry in that if you don't pay attention from day 1 and remember everything from day 1 then your screwed because everything is applicable in physics because everything is related. With a correct understanding of physics, it can really be fun like during labs and such. So as this semester of physics comes to a set, it will once again rise again next semester offering challenges and fun.

Energy #1

This week we began learning about energy. We learned the different forms of energy which are kinetic, spring, and potential. We also learned about work, which is the exertion of energy. Energy is measured in joules and watts. This is a picture of me and my environmental science class doing the Ka'ena point hike from one side to the other. It was a long and very tiring hike. In the blazing sun we used a lot of energy walking up and down and side to side. We lost energy because of the amount of work our bodies were using. While our bodies were working it was exerting kinetic energy because we were moving the entire time. Potential is when an object is at rest and spring is when an object is pulled back at a certain distance then projects forward. I didn't know that energy was in physics!

Eggdrop Lab

This is a picture of me holding our spegg ship in class before it was tested. My group was Joe, Ian and I. Our spegg ship was made of two clenex boxes and two pieces of a cut pillow stuffing. First we opened the two clenex boxes bottoms so that when we put the boxes together it would form a bigger box. Then we cut a circular score in the middle of the two pillow parts so we can put the egg in. The point of this lab was to make a vehicle to put an egg in and drop it three stories and still be in tact. On our first drop the wind blew the spegg ship onto the wall and forced us to repeat the drop. I was scared that the egg had broken but I still believed that our spegg ship would hold. On the second drop, with a little throw, our spegg ship hit the road. When we opened it up we laughed in success as we seen that our egg had survived untouched.

Momentum #3

This is a video of UFC 129 when Lyoto Machida fought Randy Couture. Lyoto won the fight with a knock out due to a kick to Randy's jaw. Lyoto Machida trained martial arts ever since he was a little kid and mastered all types of strikes. Lyoto is around 205 lbs. and fights in the light heavy weight division. That means when Lyoto kicks it's with a large mass. So when Lyoto threw the kick it had a high velocity and mass which projected a lot of momentum to Randy's jaw. Because Randy wasn't expecting that type of unorthodox kick from Lyoto he failed to protect himself. Since the time of the momentum transfer was short there was a lot of force put into his face that caused him to get knocked out. Even UFC fighters know their physics!

Momentum #2

This is a picture of Foxy, my sisters dog, which is a half chihuahua half terrier breed dog. These types of dogs are known to be very rascal and energetic. Today when I took her to the park to go walking I noticed that she kept running off really fast, until she slipped on the wet side walk and did a barrel roll a couple times. This made me think about momentum, which is the new section we are learning about this week. Because Foxy's inertia was forward movement and she was moving at a high velocity, her momentum pushed her forward. So even when she lost control her momentum drove her to continue to move forward. Foxy was just taught a basic lesson of momentum.

Momentum #1

This upcoming week we will be learning about momentum. Over the course of this year we have learned kinetics and motion. Momentum is a mixture of both. Momentum is kind of related to inertia but is a little more complicated. This weekend I took this picture as I passed the fair that was taking place in Kapolei. I thought to myself that a ferris wheel sort of has components of momentum. It is hard to start something up when it has momentum. Thats why you build up momentum so that it keeps going, like inertia. If it wasn't for the mechanisms in the ferris wheel to stop it, the momentum would keep the ferris wheel spinning because of the amount of force that was applied.

Force #3

Once again this week we continued to learn more about force. This picture was taken on our football senior retreat this summer on Kauaʻi. In this picture a few of us woke up at 4 to prepare an imu for our pig to be cooked on. As you can see Kory and I were taking turns smashing up banana stumps that would later be used to cover up the imu. I realized that this was a perfect example of newtons first law. When we held the sledgehammer in our hands it was still and continued to remain still because of its inertia. But when we applied unbalanced force downward with our swing then the inertia changed to a downward motion until it hit another force that balanced it out, which was the ground. Once again physics is applied to our everyday life. Without it we wouldʻnt have been able to enjoy our wonderful fresh imu kalua pig that night.

Force #2

This is a picture of me showing my incredible strength while holding up my girlfriend up. Before I picked her up she was standing still and her inertia caused her to want to stay as so. But when I picked her up using an extraordinary force her inertia swooped her off her feet upward causing her to continue to move upward almost making me fall backwards. Her force or mg's, which consists of the product of her mass and the constant of gravitation acceleration or weight, was pushing down on the normal force that I had holding her up. Once again proving that physics is important in everyday life.

Force #1

This week in physics we began learning the basics about force. In this picture during New Years, I am swinging a red dragon whip firework around myself like a mad man. Although it was popping, it was also swinging around me. The definition of inertia is a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion unless that state is changed by an external force. When the red dragon whip was in its box, the inertia wanted to stay still and curled up, so that's exactly what it did. But when I removed it from its box, lighted it, and began swinging it, the inertia caused it to want to stay in its swinging motion. Thus once again proving even more that physics is applicable to our everyday life.

Roads: BUREKU

This is a picture of a section of Kapolei, where I live, and as you can see there are many different roads winding through it. In this section of Vectors we are studying how you can find the angle and length of a vector given one or two other vectors. We can do this by using trigonometry equations such as sin, cosine, and tangent. For example, when roads are built not all of them were built to take each person directly to the location they had to go, that's why we have so many roads connection to other roads. Each road represents a vector with different direction and magnitude. All these vectors have a start point and an end point, such as the "tail to tip" method infers. Using the BUREKU method we can find how far from our house to any direct point on this island by using the vector measurements for every road we would have to take to get there. Isn't that cool?

Vectors #1

It may be a little hard to see but this is a picture of the car parade that was taken after the Kahuku versus Kamehameha varsity football game. It happened to be a majority of the seniors that were driving to the party house. The next chapter were studying vectors, which is the study of equal movement. This picture shows a perfect example of vectors in the real world because they have both magnitude and direction. All the cars have similar magnitude, or muchness, because they are all cars but some cars may have bigger magnitudes than others. When leaving the stadium all the cars in the parade were heading in the same direction. Although some of the cars may be moving at different velocities they have equivalent directions.

Kinematics #4

In the game of football everyone has a position either on offense or defense. If its from playing offensive line or receiver or quarterback, everyone has a job that their responsible for. During a typical football game players run on and off the field. Their total displacement from getting off the bus to getting back on is zero. When on the field players also show other signs of kinematics. For example, as an offensive lineman when we break from the huddle we run to the line and get down in our stance. Since we are at rest our velocity at this point is zero. But when the ball is snapped in a matter of seconds our velocity and acceleration increases until contact with a defensive player. When making contact our velocity and acceleration decrease but never hit zero. Once again physics has been proven to be actively involved in football.

Late Labor Day Blog

In chapter 2 we studied further into kinematics. We learned more about velocity, acceleration, and speed. I will be talking about each one in this example of kinematics on the football field. In this picture Kanekoa, our excellent kicker, is punting the ball away on a failed 3rd down conversion. As you can see the ball is being kicked up. Since gravity is applicable in our everyday life the football is bound to come down. If the punt returner catches the ball at the same height at which the ball was punted then the football should have around the same speed (if we ignored other variables such as wind, ball spin, etc.). The footballs velocity changes because the football changes direction in mid-air. This is due to the acceleration of the football which goes from slow to fast, then reaches the peak where the velocity becomes 0, then progresses from slow back to fast. This just shows once again that kinematics is applicable in football as well as our everyday life.

Average Speed

Back in the day cars like these weren't that fast. All they were used for was from getting from point A to point B. But I'd like to use this car as an example of kinematics for this chapter. This car was built as a standard car. If you didn't know standard cars need to reach a certain speed before changing gears and reaching top speed. Thus meaning that standard cars stay at the same speed for a longer period of time depending of driving conditions Since learning the new equation distance equals average velocity times the time, I realized that you can't just take the speeds average but you need to take in consideration how long the car was traveling at that speed. This is because the times spent at certain speeds plays a vital role in the average velocity of the car during its travel. Using this equation, I think that this is how scientists and engineers invented automatic cars to reach higher speeds in a faster time.

Average Speed

On Friday, the Kamehameha Varsity football team challenged the Radford Rams and obtained a much needed win. The spartan Tyler Meditz played a terrific game and had tremendous runs. After looking at the game stats the next day I seen that he averaged 10.2 yards a carry. Then I realized that this was a perfect application of what we learned in physics the day before. Knowing that Meditz is a beast I knew that he had big runs but didn't have 10.2 yards every carry. Some carries he was hit in the backfield or had no gain, while others he was able to stay with the push and reach third level, even score a 80 yard touchdown. This combined yardage equaled the 10.2 yard average. I am starting to realize how applicable physics is in my everyday life.

Relationships

 

For our homework assignment we needed to take a picture of an item or thing that we found that has a form of relationship within itself. For my assignment I chose my ceiling fan. I chose a ceiling fan because there are two forms of relationships. The first relationship is that the faster the fan spins, the more air is released. So the relationship is between fan speed and air release. The second relationship is that the longer the fan blades are, the bigger the area of air release. Meaning that when the fan is on and spinning, if the blades are longer, the area of air release increases. The relationship is between the fan blade length and the area of air release.

Introduction

 Hello my name is Chevy Fonseca and this is my first post on my new blog for physics. I am a Senior and have been attending this school since fourth grade. I am very appreciative for our founder Aunty Bernice and I try to make her proud everyday. I live in Kapolei but was born in Kealakekua on the Big Island. I enjoy to play football and do track & field. My progress in science so far has been biology my freshman year, chemistry my sophomore year, environmental science this past summer, and now physics. I wasn't sure if I was even going to take physics knowing that environmental science counted as a graduation science credit but I know that having four years of science in high school really helps you get into college. Some colleges that I'm interested in are the Air Force Academy, Pacific, and Portland State University. The current math courses I am in is college algebra and trigonometry. What I hope to gain as a result of completing this course is to be able to understand basic physics concepts and be able to apply it to my everyday life. Also to learn how much science is related to me all throughout my life. Lastly this picture is a good example of my personality. At times I can be serious and concentrated, but when I'm not I like to have fun and have a good time. Some people call me a clown, others a retard. Haters gonna hate but I don't let that stop me from being myself. Peace!