Science Egg drop

While developing my egg dropper to drop my egg into while working in the egg drop project I was thinking of what would generally cushion the egg and slow it down before it got to the bottom of the cup. I wanted to design a cup that had a process that the egg went through as it fell thought he cup. Each step of this process would slow the egg down more so that once it was done with every step the egg would stop moving. The first design that our group came up with was a design that had this method in 2 steps. There was a cone that would pinch the egg as it went down slowing the egg gradually, the cone was filled with paper shreddings to slow the egg on impact to the cone. At the very bottom below the cone there was a fail safe trampoline just in case the egg broke through the cone and hit the bottom too hard. Our second design had more separated steps which might or might not have been a good idea but it seemed to work pretty well. This design had straws at the top of the cup that the egg would pass through lowering its velocity and force before impact into the paper shreddings that were in the cup. From the beginning of the project to the end we changed our design and we had a different plan in our process. Our best design was probably the 2nd design with the straws on the top and paper in the bottom.      









My most successful trial was probably my last one and even though the egg broke I still felt the most success afterwards. Before I dropped the egg I was really scared I was going to miss when I dropped the real egg because it was our last one. I started dropping fake eggs until I was making every one and sure I was going to make a real egg if I dropped one. What I didn't know was that while I was dropping fake eggs our cup broke twice, cracking on the side and all the paper shreddings got crushed down reducing their efficiency. I dropped the real egg at the very end of the class, I let it out of my fingers and watched if fall towards the cup. It looked like a perfect drop and it was. The egg fell straight though the middle of the straw layer and lost its speed a little but not enough. The egg left the straw layer and hit the crushed down paper shreddings. Since the paper shreddings were crushed down they didn't have as much potential to slow the egg down than if they were fluffed up. The egg cracked on the paper shredding and we were done with the project coming out with a B. in this project we had a lot of problems including minimal supplies and dropping the eggs. 2 of our eggs broke from bad drops, one had a guillotine fail and the other missed the cup completely. I dealt with this problem by practicing with a ton of practice eggs before I dropped a real one and this method seemed to work because on our last egg I had a perfect drop. I had also wished that that we could've used more supplies in this project just to make it a little more fun, I wanted there to be taller cups so that there could be more processes that the eggs went through as they went down thought the cup or tube. When we made a cup with the supplies we had the greatest amount of steps we could achieve was three, I wanted around 10-15. The things I used to improve my egg drop were coming up with different designs and dropping the eggs with more accuracy.
     When the egg dropped it had and average speed of 5.27m/s, that means that it would leave your hand and hit the cup in less than a second if you where below 5.27m high. The egg will accelerate at about 12m/s/s so that means it will keep speeding up on its way down until it hits your cup. If you decrease the force of the egg which is approximately .78m/s/s*kg, to fast then the egg will crack. You want to design your egg catcher to decrease the eggs speed and force as fast as possible but not fast enough to crack the egg, if you did that you would have the perfect egg catcher. Our egg catcher decreased the force of the egg to fast so the egg cracked.
I thinks that momentum and force played major roles in this project because you built your egg catcher around the rules of momentum. You wanted to decrease the momentum of the falling egg slowly so that the egg wouldn't crack. To do this you had to understand what momentum was and also understand how to use it to your advantage, this is the same idea with force.
     There where many forces that where acting on my egg as I dropped it from my hand to the egg dropper. One of the main forces was gravity which pulled my egg towards the egg catcher at the bottom of the drop. The force of gravity also made it so that momentum and acceleration where acting on my egg also. Acceleration made force act upon my egg as well as speed. At the bottom of the drop there was impact which was also force. Air resistance applied friction as the egg went down. Gravitational forces of the earth also had a very very very slight affect. The gravity coming off of masses of objects most greatly the earth affected the drop. Many forces most of them that we can't test or see with the eye or machines where at work when I dropped the egg.

Skills for Success 1rst tri

In the first trimester I tried to use my skills of success effectively and evenly but I found myself tilting toward only a few skills at first. I think the skill that I know how to use the best is learn, because I like to learn new things especially when it's fun like the egg drop project and the Saber Conocer project in Spanish. Even though that was my best skill I still think that I improved a lot on collaborating with other people during the first trimester. At the beginning of the trimester I could collaborate with certain people but now I think that I am more open with working with more people than I was in the first trimester. I would like to improve my solving problems skill more because I think it would help me get out of a lot of tough situations where the answer isn't clear and I need to really need to know how to solve problems more effectively. I also think that if I think about my skills more while I'm working that will help me improve them because I'll know that they are there. In order to improve some of my skills I may need help from other people like if I want to improve my collaborate skill I could get more help from my partners that I have in different projects. I could get teachers help to understand how to work around problems and other help from other people.

Egg Drop

In our science egg drop project we got a final score of a B, that means we dropped from 2 meters without our egg breaking. We also dropped fro 2.5 meters 3 times and I broke all three of the eggs on 2.5 meters. The first egg we broke on 2.5 meters dropped and bounced out of the cup and broke. The second egg I dropped missed the cup completely. After breaking those two eggs I practiced dropping the fake egg until I was making them all. Then I dropped the egg perfectly into the cup and felt a ton of accomplishment that I had made this egg into the cup but when I went to take the egg out of the cup it was cracked in the cup. Even though the egg was cracked I still felt that that was the most successful drop out of them all. I think that from 1-10 on effort, I had about a nine because even when we had to through away our egg catcher we would go and build another one. We were productive and good at working together. Our most successful egg dropper was one that had a tube of paper filled with shredded paper that was placed inside a cup that had a trampoline like thing at the bottom that was filled with shredded straws. This egg catcher had to go when we dropped stuff into it so many times that the cu cracked and it got egg goo on it. I think that if we had this catcher during our final drop the egg would not have cracked. However our final egg catcher was pretty good also, it had paper shreddings inside a cup, and straws that slowed the speed of the egg before impact on top. Here is a picture at https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/photo.jpg?w=f315c2b6

Exploratory

Recently I signed up for exploratory. I chose the soccer coaching exploratory for 2 reasons, 1 because there was no other exploratory that i really liked, and 2 because I would get to teach little children from the lower school how to play soccer, just like how when i was little there where people my age who taught me how to play. I am in this exploratory with 3 other people: Maddie P, Mac G, and Casey Y. Im assisting coach Ryan with the 4th graders, and as of now I have only assisted once

Science Test

In the most recent science test I did pretty well in all 4 parts of the test. On the Multiple choice questions I got every question right. On the calculations I got 19.5/20 points. On the motion graphs section I got 11/12 points. Last of all on the short answer questions I got 18/20 points. On the next science test I think I could be more successful if I read the questions more thoroughly and recheck each problem after I do it. I think that this test and the marshmallow challenge both tell me that I should concentrate on one problem at a time and only deal with problems out of order if they are crucial on what I am working on at the motion. They also show me that I should be more thorough with problems/challenges and try to understand that my main goal is made up of little things that I have to do good on.

Spanish Reflection

In our Spanish Class this year the class did a project where we had to use the words saber and conocer to describe a place that we went on vacation or a place that we had gone before. This project helped me understand how saber and conocer works. Before the project I vaguely knew how to use saber and conocer but after the project I felt confident using these words in a sentence. Overall this experience helped me learn more Spanish in a fun and interactive way.

I think that the 2 best presentations that I saw where Maddie's and Sarah's presentations. I like Maddie's presentaion because it was very detailed and had many pictures that described the place she was at very well. I feel like I want to go to wildwood because of this presentation.
I liked Sarah's presentation because it also had good pictures and had detailed descriptions about the places in Brekenridge, I would like to go skiing their someday.

Middle East Unit Reflection

     Recently the Language Arts class has just finished the Middle East Unit. In this Unit we learned that the Middle East is an important place historically and currently, how the Middle East's geography shapes the Middle East, and how to research the Middle East and finding good reliable information.
     The Middle East is an important place historically and currently mostly because it holds a lot of power. The Middle East is the homeland of many religions and it also was conquered over and over by many different Empires that ruled across the Middle East. For example, Israel is the Jewish homeland and Israel is in the Middle East. Right now the Middle East is broken up into many governments but in the past it was home to many different empires like the Babylonians, Sumerians, Persians, and Romans. The Middle East held power because of religious and governmental reasons, but also because of its geography and location.
     The geography of the Middle East has shaped the Middle East to how it is today. Its location gives it power and the land and climates in the Middle East also add to its popularity. The Middle East is located in the center of three continents which gives it a lot of power because Empires in the Middle East have a wide range of power. The different trading routes in the past have also given the Middle East power because certain trading routes, like the silk road, went right through the middle of the Middle East which gives the Middle East power, money, and goods. Certain places in the Middle East like the fertile crescent, have great land for growing crops and the land also has many resources like oil. This good land brought more people to the Middle East which increased its population, power, and advancements in technology.
     When you research facts about anything, you want to know what types of websites to use. At our school there are websites that the school is subscribed to, like country reports, and gale databases. The students can use these websites for projects and reports all they want. All of these websites are reliable and have incredibly detailed information and are very helpful when working on a project such as the Middle East hotspot project, or any other project. When you aren't using the school database then you have to know how to figure out if websites have good or bad info.
     During the Middle East project we learned how to do all these things and I think that these are skills and knowledge that it will b good to have in the Future.

Romeo and Juliet

In our language Arts class right now we are just beginning to read the shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. This play is hard to read because of the Language that shakespeare uses to make the play sound more rythimic, but it is still possible to read and his stories are supposed to be very good. We are ongly reading the story in class becasue we can understand the book better if we can read, discuss, and act out what is happening. When we act out a confusing scene people from the class come and act out a certain part and overall this just helps us understand the confusing book.

Mrs. Pyeatt Interim Reflection

     In my Interim Report for Language Arts and Social Studies, almost all of the X's I gave myself were lower than the X's that Mrs. Pyeatt gave me. The things that I were best at according to Mrs. Pyeatt were drawing independent conclusions, and generating creative ideas. The things I were best at according to myself were engaging in group discussions and working cooperatively in groups.  It helps to know what level Mrs. Pyeatt thinks that I am at and also because you get to see where you stand from both the teacher and your point of view. They will help me continue through the year because I will know what my weaknesses are and my strengths so I can focus on something I'm bad at and get better. I like the idea of these and I hope we keep on getting them throughout the year.

Scravid Reflection

     While reading the book Enders Shadow by Orson Scott Card, our Language Arts class had to take 2-3 notes per chapter of Enders Shadow. Each note would help you remember a certain part of the book that had a significant reading strategy. We would write down what strategy we had used for that section of the book and it would help us remember the book better after we had read it. The 7 strategies were called SCRAVID, each letter of scravid stands for a reading strategy, summarize, connect, re-read, ask questions, visualize, infer, and decide. I think that I will remember Enders Shadow very well because of using these strategies.
     The three top reading strategies that I used in the book were re-read, visualize, and connect. I used re-read in the beginning of the book when Sister Carlotta entered the story. I used this example because sometimes I would read things that I wouldn't understand the first time that I read them, but if I went back and read them again then they made perfect sense. When I used visualize, I used it because I could visualize a scene in the book to better understand it. I would read the details in the part of the book I wanted to visualize (like when I visualized the line before the soup kitchen in Enders Shadow.) Then I would visualize the scene, and it would bring the book to life a little more than it already was. The time that I used connect was where the city of Rotterdam was introduced. I connected that city to a city in a third world country, and it helped me to better visualize the city of Rotterdam. Those are my three favorite reading strategies, and I hope that they will continue to help me better remember and understand the book.
     In the future I hope that I will learn how to use a more vast amount of reading strategies so that I can understand the book or literary work I am reading better and through different perspectives. These reading strategies help you enjoy books better and I think that I will find myself reading more than I used to if I can remember scravid.

Science Interim Report

Today we got back our Science Interim report. In this report there where x's to mark at what point I was in learning throughout the year. We had to make our own x's on the paper and then we would get back what the teacher thought our x's should be. Mr. lammers's x!s and mine were different because his x's were farther along throughout the year and my x's were still at the beginning of the year, the relationship between the x's was relatively the same. I think that the average of our x's would be most true and because it would be most accurate of how far thought he year I would be. Overall I think that  the average of our x's would be most accurate but the relationship between them is correct.

Roller Coaster Project Reflection

     Last week we finished the roller coaster project, our group had a pretty good roller coaster but our group wasn't the best. We had Haley, Hannah, and I in our group and we learned to overcome the problems we had while working together. In the beginning of the project working together was hard but by the end we were doing it pretty well. We had success in shaping the track how we wanted it by using a lot of tape.
     This project was related to motion because of several reasons, one being momentum because if you wanted a cool roller coaster you had to understand momentum to construct things like loops and turns. You also had to use speed because your roller coaster was much more exiting if you could control the speed of the marble. I learned a lot from this project about motion but I hope I keep learning in the future projects.
     In this project I had to use one skill the most, collaboration, it took a lot to get through this project.

Roller Coaster Project Science

Right now in science the class is doing a group project where we build a roller coaster based off ofa design   that we made on a roller coaster app. I am in a group with Hannah Nagle and as we do not work well it is really hard for me to move on in the project and work with her and collaborate.

Gregorio

In my Spanish class we all had a solo project where we had to re-tell a story in Spanish. The story was called Gregorio and it was about a boy who went into his own picture and had to help a town with a "giant" problem. In our project we had to make notecards with pictures that went along with the story and then present the note cards in front of the class and tell the story from memory in spanish as we showed the flash cards. It was a fun project and I think I did really well about speaking fluently and with the right accent.

Scravid Reflection

While reading Enders shadow Mrs. Pyeatt had us use scravid reading strategies to make us better understand the book at hand. I think that that these 7 strategies, summarize, connect, re-read, ask, visualize, infer, decide, worked sometimes and helped you to keep the main idea of the story in your head. Other times where you where at a climatic point in the book, the scravid strategy didn't seem like a good idea because I think it drew away attention from the climax.

Jet car report

Without link


Sam Ryan
Science
Mr. Lammers
     This year in science the core 3 class had a project called the Jetcar project. In this project the class had to make a car out of basic materials including a balloon and wheels. There were three different goals of the project: you could attempt the distance challenge, where for an A+ you had to have your "Jetcar" travel 8 full meters on its own. There was the speed project where your car had to travel 3m in as little time as possible, for an A+ in this challenge you had to go 3m in 1.5 seconds or less. There was also the jump challenge where to get an A+ your car had to jump between tables that were 50cm apart. Each person could try for whatever project they wanted, and the goal was to master that project. In order to get a good grade in this project each individual person would have to understand aerodynamics, friction, drag, and precision. Overall It was a fun but hard project.
     When I did the project I got an A+ in the distance challenge by going 10.10m. I think that Mr Lammers made the distance project so that you had to go 8m. to get an A+ because you could get a 7m run or a 6m run but in order to get 8m you had to upgrade your car, prototype, and be patient, I think that an 8m run is very different from a 7m run because you had to truly master the distance challenge to get 8m. I also attempted the speed challenge and got 3m in 1.32 seconds. To me this challenge wasn't as hard to master as the distance challenge because there wasn't so much of a leap between A and A+, all I did to get an A+ on this project was test my distance car in the speed challenge, it probably would have been more fun if I had had to work for the A+.  I think in order to master this challenge, your car had to be light but stable, it had to have a lot more power than required by any of the other tests, it had to have minimal friction and minimal drag. Both projects required skill from the car designer and the designer also had to understand and meet the requirements put forth by the test. Along with being challenging the project was fun because it was more involved and represented physics in a fun way.
     The perfect balloon Jetcar made with the same materials that the project provided would be a car with a note card deck and straw axles, straw axles are where the straws are attached to the car and the wheels are attached to sticks that are put thought the straws, the balloon could be pumped up all the way and never pop. The car would be heavy enough to handle the force the balloon gave without spinning out, but light enough to move fast but in a straight line. It would have a double exhaust because in order to be a perfect car it would have to complete all 4 challenges including speed and jump. The weight challenge would be tricky but the car would be strong enough to carry the amount of weight required to get an A+.
     My ballon Jetcar had some problems in the the prototyping but they were fixed along the way, the way my car worked is it would let out a large amount of air at once and give it a huge burst of speed and then the car relied on its axles to roll another 4-7m., I think this technique was one of the winning styles because it worked better than other styles I had seen by then. I wanted my Jetcar to be a three wheeler but encountered problems because there was no where for the balloon to rest on the deck, so I made a hub for the front wheel and this only complicated my car making it hard to work with and impossible to run without constant maintenance. I fixed this problem by making the car have 4 wheels which did make it heavier but also gave certain advantages that came with the weight like it had more stability ad went straight more consistently. I also wanted the car to run for a long time having the air coming out of the balloon very slowly but conserving the time that the air would be coming out, I later realized that this idea could work but I had a better one, just make the air burst out and have it roll for a long time, this worked better until a car that had my earlier propulsion design beat my record, then I second guessed this decision. The same problems that you face while building a balloon Jetcar could also appear if you were a car designer. If you where a car designer you could have problems with the weight and stability of your car. You would want the weight be able to handle the propulsion that the car gave out and you wouldn't want the car too heavy because then you wouldn't be using your propulsion as effectively. Also cars have to be made steady, they can't veer of to one side. Cars have to have very accurate parts that all work in an effective and efficient way.
     I think that this project was a great project, one of the things that kept me going during this project was creativity to see if I changed something if it would affect something that would in turn make the car go farther or roll better. I think this project helped me understand how things work a little better because I got to figure it out myself and still have a goal in mind. I didn't really have a problem with perseverance because I wanted to move forward because of the good things I would learn and the excitement the next step would bring me to.  In the next science project I will try to find this willing to understand and I think that that alone can get me through most stuff.

Vocab Test's

This year in Language arts we are practicing our Latin and Greek root words. We have a test on the roots and the words about every 2 weeks. So far we have only had 1 test but I found that if I studied a certain way then I would remember the words and roots much better and then score higher on the test. I found that if you studied by writing out all the words and definitions like 2 or 3 times on a piece of paper then you could remember them when the test came. Flash cards work also but I think that the only way that they help me is when I write them all out. The last way I would study for these tests are drawing pictures to go with each word. Since we have only had 1 vocab test this year I havnt used this method much but I know that last year I used it on my final exam in geography, so this year I will probably end up using this method sometime this year, because for me it's like a power memory method.

Writing Workshop Story 1

My first writing workshop story should be at this link
http://db.tt/3WcNSSsx

Some of the things in the story that I think stood out from some of my other stories, were: details, being clever, imagery, and story organization. Since my story ended in sort of a cliff hanger I think that I might make a follow up kind of sequel maybe, I think the story was kind of like that thing where they have the picture inside the picture inside the picture type thing. So that's my first story of the year and I thought it was pretty good.

Jetcar Report for Science

This is the link for my Jetcar report. I think it is really good but it is 3 pages long so if you want to read it be ready.
http://db.tt/g0EdR8ou

Science Leadership Activity Reflection

Yesterday the core 3 science class was put through an unknown leadership test by Mr. lammers.
What Happened:
     Mr. lammers gave us all an instruction packet for a project that we had to do, then he stopped talking and wouldn't answer any questions that we had, and wouldn't help us at all. The goal for us was to complete the project without his help. In the first 17 minutes of class nobody did anything, we didn't get any work done and we basically failed the first half of the class. After those 17 terrible minutes we got more work done than any of the other science classes that were put through the same test, and because of this we were pretty successful for the second part of the class. In order for the project we needed a lot of leaders, and a bunch of them stepped up and helped keep things organized and moving forward at all times. There were a lot of leaders and they all helped out a lot, Scott Hilderbran helped out with the computer system that measured the velocity of the moving objects that we were testing. Baylis, William and I helped out with the materials by bringing a bowling ball, a basketball, and a beach ball and we were each in charge of one of them. Hannah and Cammile also helped out as leaders by being in charge of the timing of the objects and everybody else helped out building and managing the track for the balls.

Science Jetcar 2

The Jetcar project came and passed and I did not beat the all time record of the school, but Camille Long did, I think that my car failed because the balloon had been used too many times before and it just wouldn't exert as much propulsion today. On the good side I got an A+ in the speed test as well as the distance test, so now I have bombproofed my trimester grade. I hope everybody else did better than they expected today, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the science year.

Jet Car Project

     The jet car project is probably the most fun project that I've ever done in the middle school. It's fun yet challenging. Right now my score is 10.10 meters, but I'm hoping that tomorrow I will have a score of 11.5 meters, I have done this before but it was not a test and therefore doesnt count. Good luck to everybody else in the project.