The Last Post

When I think about physics, the first thing that comes to mind is obviously that physics is the study of the motion of various things in the world. I think that though my knowledge of physics has greatly expanded, my understanding of the definition of what physics is has not really evolved throughout the summer. I learned much more than I ever imagined in this class. I had no idea that I would be so enlightened at the end of this summer. I learned the true answers to all the childhood questions I had about colors and that was pretty cool to say the least. I think that this class was actually very fun. Going into it I thought that this class was going to be so hard and challenging for me. I found this class to have its moments of challenge and pain, as expected but in the end I am very happy with how I did and what I learned.

This class was actually very fun for me. I think that Mr. Blake having his own special way of doing things made this class fun as well. Mr. Blake was able to get me interested in physics and I think that helped me in the end to really learn things here.
The only real improvement I can think of is that sometimes the class felt, dare I say a little bit too slow. There were a few times I really had to struggle to keep alert and interested which made my life hard.
Overall I had a very good experience in summer physics and I am glad that I decided to take the class.

Here's a picture of a random wave from my desktop to represent this summer.

Unit 10-Sun

Today we learned about how the eye see things such as reflections in a mirror and light from sources like candles, light bulbs, the sun, and other things. This picture of my car basking in the glorious sunset outside the City Mill store shows how my eye was seeing the light from the sun. The parallel ray from my eye to the sun just happens to be parallel to the ground and the focal ray will cross paths with the parallel ray to show just where my eye is truly seeing the light coming from then sunset. The central ray in all of this crazy will mainly serve as something that will help me to focus both of my rays on the point that my eyes are seeing the sunset at. This is confusing. Oh well.

Unit 10-Pretty Colors

Today in class we got to play with lights and lasers. We learned that colors of light mix in many ways to create various different combinations of light that when combined correctly are quite amazing. We learned that the primary colors of light are red, blue, and green when mixed, these three colors will create white light. When mixing a few combinations of these colors you get things like magenta and yellow and my personal favorite, cyan, which is a product of blue and green. We also learned why the sky is blue and why the ocean is also blue. We even learned why the sun sets red in our Hawaiian sky. It sets red because there is so much junk in the air.

Unit 9- Grand Waltz

This picture of dancers explains sound and sound waves because we make sound with our pointe shoes as we move and jump through the Sleeping Beauty Grand Waltz Variation that we performed this morning. As our pointe shoes strike the ground, they are vibrating, causing a sound to be formed at some frequency when we hit the ground with our shoes. Since the box/ tip of the shoe is hard and made of burlap and cardboard, they hit the ground quite hard which in turn, causes the sound and vibration made by the shoes to be quite loud. Not something we want when performing. Hopefully nobody will really notice it.

Unit 9- Slater

This wonderful photograph of Kelly Slater surfing at pipeline explains this unit because he is on a wave. That is the main thing we are learning about in this unit. Kelly here is surfing on a transverse wave. This means that his wave is perpendicular to the direction in which he is going. Now, being the great surfer that he is, Kelly is able to utilize the various amplitudes of the waves to his advantage. The change in the amplitude of the wave allows Kelly to surf said wave for a longer period of time; making it infinitely cooler for on lookers like my self who have no idea how to surf, much less how to even stand up on the board. Ok, I'm lying, I tried surfing once; never again.

The final day of launching

Today was the day we've all waited for. We all launched our rockets and the end goal was to get 10 seconds in the air or more, if we really wanted to beat Mr. Adam's class. My group passed... yay. We are a little bit upset though. We did get 10 seconds but we really wanted to surpass our previous launch which was 13 seconds.

Our rocket had some great thought put into it and that resulted in a parachute, 4 fins and a detachable nose cone. We did take a good bit of time to make the parachute but in the end, it was worth it. The parachute did not deploy as planned today but that was due to our inadequate folding. The parachute got stuck in the nose cone. The string that was on our nose cone connecting it to the rocket also broke today. We ended up replacing the string with something thicker and stronger and that seemed to work well.  The one time the parachute deployed was utterly fantastic. The whole day led up to that moment and it finally happened.

Due to lack of PSI gauges on the pumps, we did not get an accurate reading of our PSI. We just pumped until we could pump no more. We decided that we were going to fill out 2 liter bottle half way with water. We tried that a few times and it did not work so we then changed our amount to just under half of the bottle and that worked for us.

This project taught me that in order for the rocket to float gently down to the ground we have to make sure that we have a parachute that is functional. It also taught me that you have to make sure that everything is in its proper place before you begin the process of launching the rocket. I also learned that you have to just keep on going because the result that you want to get will happen it just takes some time and patience.

Rockets Rock!

Today we had a lot of time to work on our rocket design and to work on any improvements we wanted to make on the rocket. My group decided to make a fairly large parachute out of a tablecloth that was purchased from Wal-Mart.  Of course our tablecloth is fabulous and tie-dyed, because who buys normal plain tablecloths? Just no. It had to be fabulous. Our design was quite simple; we cut the tablecloth into a circle and fastened 8 strings on it that were equally spaced out from each other. We re-enforced the parachute with duct tape. As far as the rocket goes, the most daring thing we did to it was add an extra fin, which happened to work really well. Our last launch was by far the best one we have done. We got a time of 13.15 seconds.

Unit 8-Rocketry

In this unit, we learned about work, energy, and power. This rocket shows all three of those things in multiple ways. This rocket shows work because I can multiply the force on the rocket by how far it goes to get how much work it is doing. I can find the energy of the rocket by multiplying its mass by 9.8m/s^2 and then multiplying that answer by the change in height that the rocket experiences. That might be hard because the height of the rocket is a little hard to find. I can find out how much power the rocket is producing by dividing its change in work by its change in time. What a fascinating item, don't you think? The rocket in all of its glory.

Unit 8-Miley

This wonderful video of Dane coming in like the glorious wrecking ball that he is explains kinetic energy in many ways. It also makes kinetic energy quite entertaining. The background music adds so much to the whole effect as well. Dane is swinging with a certain amount of kinetic energy. If I wanted to find out what Dane's kinetic energy would be, I would need to use the equation kinetic energy equals one half mass times velocity squared. (KE=1/2MV^2) I don't know Dane's mass and I'm pretty sure he won't be telling me. Too bad for us, guys. No chance to figure out how fast Dane is coming in like a wrecking ball. Eat your heart out, Miley Cyrus.

Unit 8- Sky Rockets

Today we learned about different types of energy. They consist of potential energy which is the energy that something has before it is actually moving, and kinetic energy which is the energy that something has while it is moving. We also learned about work. Work is defined as any change in energy. The equation for work is W=F*D or, work equals force times displacement. If I wanted to find out how much work it takes me to walk up a hill versus run up the hill I would have to find the distance that I am traveling and the force that I am running/ walking with. Fortunately for me, the work would stay the same because I am going to the same place. The picture that I actually chose for today's lesson is of this baseball player because he is doing work when he is throwing the baseball.

Today we also got to play with the beginnings of bottle rockets. Tomorrow we will be doing ACTUAL rocket science woah...
All I have to say about that is...

Unit 7-Egg Drop (Failure...)

Well... Today we dropped our eggs. Some of us were successful and others of us happened to fail. But that is ok. It's not the end all be all of physics. Our design was quite simple and elegant if I do say so myself. I think that the premise of sticking the egg in a foam container is a very good one because the foam will act as something that will absorbs most of the shock that occurs from the capsule hitting the ground. The use of cotton was also a good addition to the design because it allowed us to be able to close the halves of the football together without putting too much stress on the egg. During our drop the release of the football was designed to make sure that it did not land on the tip of the ball, which it didn't, thank God. When the ball stroke the ground, it unfortunately bounced up again probably causing extra force to act on the egg. Next time around, I would like to have used a bigger football because that would have been even more padding for the egg. The optimal situation would have been to go with our original plan of putting the egg in a jar of peanut butter but what we had was very good and I am not necessarily happy with the end result but I did learn a lot.

Unit 7-Egg Drop

This picture of a nerf ball that I happened to come across is my main idea for the egg drop. I plan on cutting this nerf ball in half and then proceeding to hollow out a small pocket for the egg to sit in. After doing that, I will put the egg back into the nerf ball and duct tape it together. Because there is nothing duct tape can't do. The purpose of the foam ball is to hopefully absorb some of the impact and also to lengthen the impact time. I hope to do this by dropping the ball in a vertical manner with the pointed parts of the nerf ball facing up and down respectively.  If everything goes as planned and some act of God was also in affect, we should have an intact egg after we drop the ball from Bishop.

Unit 7- The singer

This wonderful singer from the Ellen Stardust Diner in New York City shows momentum because he is moving. This singer's mass is moving at some velocity and his mass is a certain amount unknown by me. However, even though I do not know what the numbers are, there is a way for me map out how I would proceed to find his momentum. Because he continues to move, he will be gaining momentum. As you can see in the video he gains speed right before he walks over to me and puts his face right in my camera. A pretty great moment if you ask me. Anywho, I would find his momentum by multiplying the mass by the velocity of this wonderful singer, who happens to be singing one of the GREATEST songs EVER. (Apologies for cinematic quality)

Semester 1

Unit one was all about graphing and scientific notation. We learned about distance versus time graphs and we also learned about velocity versus time graphs. We learned about the relationships that come out of these graphs such as a no relationship graph which shows that there is no relationship between the x axis and the y axis. We also learned about direct relationship graphs, which show that if something on the x axis goes up then the y axis will also go up and vice versa. Scientific notation was also on the list of things we learned in unit one. We learned how to properly write those big pesky number in scientific notation and that made things much easier.  In unit two, we learned about 1D kinematics and motion mapping. We also learned about graphing movement and how we can see the relationships that come out of these graphs. We also went more in depth when it came to position versus time graphs and this helped me a lot as far as the relationships go. In unit 3 we started to do word problems about 1d kinematics. We learned about equations like d,a,t v,a,t v,a,d and d,v,t. In unit 4 We learned about projectiles and got to play with rockets which was an added bonus. We learned about the use of trig and how that can tell us many things about a projectile. In unit 5 we learned about Newton's three laws of motion and how they pertain to every day llife. We learned how to make free body drawings and we also learned that Fnet=ma. I was not present for unit 6 due to illness but I can say that unit 6 was a bout forces in motion. Pretty much unit 5 with acceleration.

Here is a video of Mr. Blake doing something magical.

Unit 6- The Dancer

In unit six, we learned about forces that accelerate. This is a picture of my absolute favorite ballet dancer pretty much ever. Her name is Sara Mearns. For those of you who don't know and/or don't care she is a dancer with the New York City Ballet. In this picture of her, she is about to be pushed up by her parter- in this case, puck the donkey- which will cause her to accelerate rapidly into an amazing series of jumps and turns. When her partner pushes her, she begins to accelerate and as she continues to move she will accelerate because she will continue to jump and turn faster.

Unit 5- Empire State Of Mind

This picture of the Empire State Building explains today's lesson because shows Newton's third law in action. In this picture, The Empire State Building is stationary. Although it looks to be silent where are forces that are acting upon this building. The force of gravity is pushing the building down and the huge normal force of the building is pushing it up. If I wanted to make a free body illustration for this building I would draw my N force line straight up and then I would draw my Mg force line straight down and I would make it the same length as my N force line. This, besides very good builders, is what is keeping this wonderful, iconic building standing tall and proud for all to see and admire.

Unit 5-NYC Cab Struggles

This New York City cab clearly explains Newton's law of inertia in many ways. This cab of course is not moving which means that it is as rest; dictating that this cab will want to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside, unbalanced force. This force/ action happens to be the thing that will cause this cab to move. When the driver presses on the gas pedal the cab will have to move because the wheels of the cab will be turning which will force the taxi and its driver to accelerate and to also start moving forward in the line of traffic.

Unit 4- Boom

This rocket clearly explains the unit because friday mostly revolved around this rocket and how we will calculate where it is going to land. The proper way to find out where this rocket will land after shooting it at an angle is to make sure that you draw the right triangle that results from the angle that you decided to launch your rocket from. If I wanted to launch my rocket at a 45 degree angle I would have to draw the rest of the right triangle making it a 45-45-90 triangle and then I would be able to use the velocity of the rocket and trig to find out how far my rocket would go.

Unit 4- Europe Trip

This unit has been stressful so far. It has been somewhat confusing, to my dismay, but I am pushing through it and learning a lot. This picture of me on this sled in Europe clearly explains this unit so far because in this case I have become the projectile. As I go down the gleaming white snowy hill I am being affected solely by gravity. Nothing else is causing me to move faster or slower down the hill; except air resistance, maybe. In order to find out how far I went we would need to first calculate the time it took for me to go down the hill and then we could calculate my distance that I traveled. Because you must have the time before you can find the distance.

Quarter 1-Sam

This is Samson. He happens to be one of the most active dogs I have ever met and he does a wonderful job representing this first quarter. There are so many things that we are now able to know by looking at Sam. We can tell how far he has run, his velocity, and we can also tell how fast he is accelerating. We would also be able to convert Sam's distance into miles by using the conversions that we learned in unit 1. If I were to make a d,t graph for Sam his graph would be a linear graph with a slope because he has a velocity. This would cause his a,t graph to be a straight line because he is not getting any faster.

Unit 3- The Mini

In this, the last day of unit 3, we learned about how to use the various kinematic equations to come up with an unknown. This car of mine is a very good example of this unit because, of course, it accelerates. I can use many kinematic equations for this car. I could potentially be able to find its distance using dat one, I could find its velocity using v,a,t one and I could find its acceleration with v,a,d one. The only thing I would really need are the rest of the measurements to plug into the equations. This would not be too hard for me to procure because I could just go out and measure the various things that I need from my car.

Unit 3-Camels are cool

Today we talked mainly about three new equations that we learned in class. These three equations have proven that they already are very important in the world of physics and they are necessary for my physics survival. This lovely picture of my and my family on a camel in Dubai represents these equations because it shows that although the camel looks to be stationary he is still accelerating downward due to the earth's gravity. If I wanted to find this camel's speed I would have to use the v,a,d equation to help me figure how fast he will be moving.

Unit 3- The Feline

Although he is not moving, this cat represents acceleration in more ways than one. Let me first introduce him. This is Max; he is my very overweight yet adorable fat, grey, pear shaped rascal of a cat. He loves to run around my house just for the fun of it. By doing this, Max is accelerating in a positive direction. He is gaining speed as he starts his running exploit and then he is accelerating in a negative direction when he gets tired and decides to stop running and sleep for a little while until he is spritely and ready to take on the world. Max's acceleration vs time graph would of course, look like a straight line because the units on this graph are meters per second squared. His v, t graph would look like a squared graph because he is gaining speed quickly.

Unit two...The Time Keeper

I think that this fabulous watch relates to unit two in many ways. One of which being that the watch is always in motion. If I were to make a motion map for this watch it would look like a never-ending line because seconds will not end unless the world does in some tragic explosion or something crazy of that nature. This watch can also be translated into a Position vs. time graph. The graph would look like a diagonal line representing the fact that the second hand moves with a constant velocity and that it does not stop moving. The velocity vs. time graph for the watch would look like a straight line that just goes to infinity and beyond. This graph would represent the fact that the watch will never stop...until it runs out of battery of course.

Unit Two

For this unit I chose a picture of a moving car mainly because this unit is so far all about velocity, speed and distance. The car that is in the picture is moving relative to us in our own respective car. There are many things that we an figure out when looking at this moving car. We can find out its speed, velocity, and displacement. By doing these things we would be able to know many things about this car and its driver. We could maybe even guess where they are heading to and why they might be heading there if you are feeling like you are in an investigative mood. All together, this car has helped me to learn many things about unit two and I would like to personally thank this car; but maybe not its driver.

Unit One Finally Done

Unit one to me, was like a gallon of iced tea because we worked on different conversion factors in this unit. I learned that there are about 3.8 liters in a gallon for example. And I learned that there are 4 quarts also in a gallon and that there are 2 pints in a quart. This unit also taught me how to properly use stoichiometry like techniques to convert various measurements into other measurements. This is like the iced tea because when you first they to pour out some tea from a full bottle it might spill over but you have to learn that you can just take it slow and then the tea will perfectly pour into your cup with the only trouble being you having to life the heavy gallon of tea. In this unit I also learned that the temperature of the iced tea is not related to the volume of the iced tea because the volume will always stay the same at any temperature. 

Who is Miranda? (Letter and picture of intro)

My name is Miranda Kate Gilbert and I was born here, in Hawaii. I am a twin and my brother also goes to Punahou and is a junior here as well. We happen to be the exact same age down to the second because of some medical complications that I will not go into for the sake of not boring you to death. I am a tennis player and a dancer and I have been doing both for about 11 years now. I also am a marching band/concert band member. Yes, marching band, I know. I love it and it has been a major part of my life at Punahou for a while.

My progress in science thus far has been quite good in my own opinion. I have taken Biology and Chemistry Honors in my two years here in high school and I have done reasonably well in both classes. Chemistry was a bit of a trip for me because math is not exactly my strong suit but I was able to get through it and walk away with a reasonable grade.

As far as math goes I am not too partial to it. I do, however feel that I have been getting exponentially better at math as a whole. In high school I have taken algebra 1 and Geometry and I have gotten good grades in both classes. Next year I will be in algebra 2/trigonometry.

After completing this course I hope to gain a firm understanding of physics as a whole and of the working of physics.

I chose the picture above picture because I feel that I am like a cat in many ways. I am timid and shy at first but after I get to know you I am open and happy all the time. I think that I am also like a cat because I do have my moments when I want absolutely nothing to do with people and I just want to be alone with my thoughts. This does not happen often. That being said, I do love to work with people and I think that like a cat, I love to be around people and let them know what I have to say and what I am thinking.