Unit Summary Post
In this unit, I got only a taste of the world that is physics. We touched on several things, starting with how to put data into Excel and create equations with lines. If the data is curved exponentially, I can plug in various equations to help straighten my data and make it reliable to make predictions from. One big thing that I learned in this unit was how to determine if a set of data is reliable or not. For example, when plugging in data points into Excel, you can use the coefficient of determination, or r^2, to see if your data has a strong connection or not. The closer the coefficient is to 1, the closer the points will be to the line of best fit. From this reasoning, I can work out either to use the data or find a different reference point using some other connection between the data points. From there, we moved into learning how to apply these graphs in real life situations; one big thing I learned out of this section was how to determine which direction an object is traveling depending on if the slope is positive or negative.
A big lesson that I learned was in our first big group project with the rubber bands and blocks of wood. During the lab, our group forgot to take data during a crucial part of our testing. Because of this, our data was warped and we couldn't use it. By learning to always take care and record everything you find, I know to be meticulous in my findings and always prepared for variables during testing. Unfortunately, our sketch of our lab that shows what was needed for our lab isn't available, but we had a rubber band stretched across two holders that shot a wooden block a certain distance depending on how far you pulled back on the band.
Learning how to carefully track my progress came in handy when I had to label different x and y axis on graphs. Another thing that I learned so far this year is how to find the velocity of a object. Velocity is defined as the change in distance over time, or V= (change of) x/t. We used position versus time graphs and velocity versus time graphs to measure and track certain objects, then used that information to describe the said object. I got the chance to apply these skills during the buggy lab, which had us find our cart's average velocity. Once we had found that, the challenge went up by a bit. We partnered with another group and had to determine the exact location at which they would crash if we set them up a certain distance away from each other. The equation we used was Position=(Velocity)(Time)+The starting position. I found that by setting each equation equal to each other, we could find the x-cordinate of the point of interception. By plugging that point back into either equation, I found our predicted location of where our buggies would collide. This lab proved to be one of the toughest so far, but the reward at the end of the process made it worth the effort. I hope that the rest of this year will yield even greater rewards of knowledge for me.
