Unit Blog Post

In this unit I learned a plethora of information. I learned about falling through the air, I learned about free fall, and I learned that free fall and falling through the air are two different concepts. While falling through the air your body is slowed down by the force of air resistance, but while you are in free fall there is no air resistance present. I also learned about projectile motion and how you can calculate the distance and height and object travels if you know the vertical and horizontal velocities.

At first understanding air resistance was very difficult. I couldn’t process the idea that if a parachute opened up then air resistance would become greater than the force of gravity and that it made acceleration negative (slower). When acceleration was negative, that meant that object was slowing down. I also didn’t understand that when an object was at constant velocity, velocity and acceleration were equal and opposite.

My effort towards class, blog posts, group works, and keeping the class enthusiastic is superb. I try to make people laugh every once in a while to keep the mood of the class positive. I work super hard during class, group work, and labs. I try to be as insightful and show that I understand what is happening in all of my blog post. I also think I am pretty persistent. My work is completed most of the time and I come prepared and ready to participate everyday. My self-confidence in physics has skyrocketed from the last unit. I don’t know if it is because math is involved but when it comes to equations like d=1/2(g)(t²), v=d/t, and F_weight-F_air/mass= acceleration, I get super excited and feel overly confident about my work.  

I also feel like I can take down difficult physics question, which in the first unit I was sky to approach.

When it comes to solving difficult problems I draw things out now. Whether t is a chart, graph, or just a box to make things easier and clearer for my brain to process.

My communication by spoken and written words has been swell in my opinion. I feel like I make my answers very clear and understandable. I absolutely love group work. Not only do I make sure to have fun with my partner, but I do make sure our work is above average. I also love group work because it allows you to understand and get to know someone you might not have talked to before. When that happens is just makes the class tighter and stronger.

My goal for the next unit is not to miss a single HW assignment, ace every quiz, and maintain at least a 95 test average.

Physics is all around us. Projectile motion connects to football, soccer, baseball basketball, tennis, etc. The concept of falling through the air not only connects to skydiving, but also base jumping, or just jumping in general.

Picture Post

This is a photo of me shooting a basketball. I never thought basketball would have anything to do with physics until i learned about projectile motion. This picture and basketball in general has something to do with projectile motion because a projectile, in this case the basketball, is shot up at and angle. The ball has a certain vertical velocity and a certain horizontal velocity. The horizontal velocity is constant while the vertical velocity changes. The ball is shot an angle, the angle changes depending on the player and position on the court. While the shot is in the air, it has the force of gravity acting on it. This slows the ball down and makes it drop back down to the ground. As the ball goes up, it is slowing down at 10 meters per second, and once it gets to the maximum height, it continues to move in the horizontal direction, while in the vertical direction movement is paused for a fraction of a second. When the ball drops, the speed that it hits the floor with will be the same speed it initially started with. To clarify though, this would be the case if someone shot an airball. In actuality, the factors of speed and time in the air would change because the ball is hitting a rim almost every time it is shot. If there was no backboard or rim and the ball was shot, the path of the ball would look like a parabola. Other sports like football, soccer, and baseball all connect with projectile motion. Is there anything in your life that connects to projectile motion?

Fallin through the air Video post

It was very hard to find a good video about air resistance while falling through the air. Though this video was very short i feel like it explained air resistance pretty well. It talks about how the increase in speed will cause the increase in air resistance. Another fact it stated was that if air resistance and the force of gravity are equal, the object will be at terminal velocity. There are probably more in depth details about falling through the air, but for a video so short, it explained the concept fairly well.

This video helped me to understand the concepts of free fall. The song is a remix of Tom Petty's "Free falling." The singer of the song uses his own personal lyrics, which talk about velocity, acceleration, then he goes more in depth of free fall. During the video, there are many scenes are showing free fall. Scenes such as people free falling with cars, off cliffs, animations, etc. With these scenes there are also slides that talk about how it takes the same time for an object to reach its maximum height as it takes for it to come back down.

Newton's Second Law Video

In this video the concept of Newton's second law is clearly stated, tested, and proven. The video states that the strength of a force is equal to the amount of mass involved multiplied by any acceleration applied to it. That isnt the definition the book gave us but it is another interpretation that means the same thing as Newton's actual second law stated. In the video, the scientist shot two balls out of a double barrel cannon. Each barrel delivered the same amount of force. The yellow ball was light and the red ball was heavy. According to Newton's second law the heavier object will have the slower acceleration, while the lighter object will have the fast. This showed to be true in this video as the yellow ball was faster than the red.