A random post to finish off the year

To anyone that may read this...
A very productive year if I may say so, spent an entire quarter building, testing and working with my team on a hovercraft. That went quite well, even though designs for a bigger, off-tile design never left the Penultimate iPad app. Flying just above tile is just as fun though, not as dangerous either.
(not as cool as the rest of the post because this is already explained in another one)

2nd quarter
A good chunk of the second quarter first semester went to rocketry! And a lot of failed attempts at putting barbie into space with baking soda and vinegar jet packs. After which, my group experimented with actual model rocket engines and achieving a personal record of approximately 4 feet high.

 While we were making barbie an astronaut, I was doing a little side project and making a two stage rocket from scratch. Took about 2-3 weeks to build it... the first time... needless to say, it came out very nicely

Launch #1 results

So.. I rebuild, 5 of the 8 fins fell off, with one hanging from glue (i don't know how this happened). Spent a few weeks on other projects before devoting a week to fixing up Phunsics1, (the unofficial name that never got painted on)

a lot of Lego bricks and learning how to properly align wings later..

I also learned that if the nose of the rocket is too light, it can cartwheel off the launchpad (solution: filling hollow nose with metal)

BALANCE ISSUE FIXED!

100% successful launch
mid flight ignition of second stage was a failure though and the rocket became lost in the neighborhood.... 2 weeks later it's found

This cannot be saved
a third build is out of the question

Rocketry came to a sudden end..

3rd quarter
(I got pictures!!)
My group had a very busy third quarter though. Starting off with lasers and then moving to renewable energy and then barbie "bungee jumping."
The laser was supposed to be able to transmit sound to a receiver that would play it back if hooked up to a speaker. We plugged in an iPod into the laser and set the receiver on the opposite side of the room and it was attached to an old karaoke machine. With few instructions we weren't quite sure how it worked but it was successful, even though it only transmitted the bass in heavy bass songs.

Renewable energy kit comes in:
This was very useful in getting to understand how renewable energy works, for me anyway. spent about a week trying out all the different ways to make energy. there was: wind turbine, electrolyzer and hydrogen fuel cell, and a solar panel. the goal for each of these was to either a) make LED lights blink or b) turn a pinwheel. After some experimenting, we brainstormed a way to scale up any one of the sources for renewable energy... they ended up being out of the budget...

Next project! Barbie Bungee jump
Materials:
barbie, countertop laboratory lattice pipe things, accelerometer, zip ties, long springs.
Procedure:
hang barbie from ceiling on long spring, drop from certain height, adjust spring so barbie doesn't hit floor. Measure the acceleration from the fall and the de-acceleration from the sudden stop (leave data collection running while spring stops bouncing, can help calculate the springs resistance) Unfortunately we were interrupted in our experiments and data analysis by Phunsics day.

Phunsics Day!
This was a day of all of the physics project put together to show to the public to help them see what we have done in the class and get the community involved.
The main attraction was the trebuchet that had trouble launching. Many people also came to see and ride the hovercraft because it was a very unique experience, how often do you get to float?
Along with those there were also rocket launches, make your own slime, make your own duck call, an alternative energy table to show the possibilities of it, a potato "accelerator", and a few other stations.
It was a very successful day and was full of fun and learning.




4th quarter will be an awesome video in another post to show what physics is