Inertia Trick

The purpose of this experiment is to show a trick using inertia. The materials needed for the trick I chose, are a coin, a card (like playing cards. solitare cards), and a video camera. What you do is place the card on your index finger with the coin centered in the middle of the card, while it is on your finger. You must balance it in order for it to stay put. Then, once it is balanced, "thump" the card with your fingers. (In other words, flick the card). Once you have done this, and you did it correctly, the coin should stay put on your index finger. If it did, then your inertia trick turned out correctly and you just proved inertia! Whoohoo!
Here is the video of me showing this Inertia Trick:

Friction Lab Report

Procedures: (1)
-gather all materials (small block of wood and a larger block of wood)
-place sand paper on one side of the small block of wood
-weigh the small block of wood
-place the block with the sand paper on the side onto the larger block of wood and angle the wood until the wood falls off.
-measure the angle of where the wood fell off.
-do the same for the block of wood that does not have the sand paper
-draw a free body diagram
-place all of you information(angles) onto the diagram
-use cosine and sin to get the vectors
-use cosine and sin for both of the different angles
-now draw two more free body diagrams.
-place the new information onto it.
-now use the formula U=Ff/Fn
-this will give you the new vectors for friction. (use this formula for both diagrams)
-Now...you are finished :)

2)THIS IS MY TABLE!
Go to this website :)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuLTcm7cYv6vdFd6X21wTWJaVjE2Tk5iNFMwbDJDOGc&hl=en_US
3)

Above are our calculations.Below is the smooth side falling off the ramp. 

(4) Conclusions
In conclusion, I learned how to find the friction of an object just by determining the angle of which it fell off of something, and then plugging it into various forms of equation. If we would have plugged either the opposite or hypotenuse into the wrong place, then our answers would have been wrong. This meaning that the vectors that we got would have been wrong, and friction would be wrong. You have to pay close attention to what information goes where. You can use this type of principle to determine the friction of speed a car was going before it wrecked. The cops could use this information to determine if the speed was legal or illegal. So therefore, the friction experiment is very useful.

Acceleration and Force Skate Board Experiment (Rolley Chair)

The lesser amount of force you put onto an object, the harder it is to push that object. This means it will go slower. The more amount of force you put on an object, the easier it is to push, and the faster it goes. If you are on a skate board, and you are pushing someone in a rollie chair, and someone is behind you on the skateboard pushing you, then when the person on the skateboard pushes the chair after being released by the person pushing them from behind, the person in the chair will continue to go, and the person on the skateboard will stop. The reason why is because you are pushing negatively while you are accelerating positively, so this makes you stop. Also, if the person in the chair, has a greater mass than you do, then that also makes you stop accelerating foward. The more mass there is on an object, the harder it is to push also. The lighter the object, the easier it is to make that object go faster. While pushing someone in a rolling chair, if you push them slowly, the force on your hands will be different then if you were to push them fast.

Tennis Ball Lab Report

1) Procedures

1.   get all materials needed (meter stick, ramp, desk, tennis ball, tape, stopwatch)
2. set up a ramp that can have the ball go off the table
3. measure the distance from the top of the ramp to the end of the table
4. measure the edge of the ramp to the end of the table
5. measure the distacne from the table to the ground
6. start predicting the distance of where the ball will hit.
7. use equations to get your predictions
8. after you get an answer, test to see if your calculations are right.
9. place your meter stick on where you predicted where it will land (you can lay tape under it to mark it also)
10. roll the ball off the lamp
11. see if it will hit where you predicted (ours landed where we predicted)
12. now....be amazed by awesome physics :)

2 and 3)

<--this is the set up

the ball in process of falling.

4) I learned that in order to predict the landing of something, you must first find out all the measurements. I then learned how to plug these measurements into different formulas/equations. The final number would be my prediction of where the tennis ball will fall after falling off the ramp. I learned to see if your prediction is right, you test your calculations. You experiment! Mark off your prediction and see if it will land there. We really didn't have any errors because our calculations were correct, therfore we predicted the landing spot correctly. If we could have miscalculated, then the prediction spot would have been way off. You can use these type of calculations in War, for when you want to drop a bomb in a particular spot. You can find out all of the measurements of spots surrounding the place you want to bomb, and time the fall. Then you can have a pretty accurate prediction of where you will land this bomb. If all of your calculations are correct, then the bomb will hit right on the spot, and our soldiers will have gotten further into winning the war.

Rat Race Lab Report (BUG)

1) Procedures:
   1. First cut out some checkered background paper.
   2. Then glue it into a cardboard box.
   3. Put the mechanical cockroach in the box, and turn it on.
   4. Start videoing the cockroach for about half a minute.
   5. when your done, upload the video onto your computer. (save it somewhere)
   6. Then go to the Tracker program that has been installed on your computer.
   7. Start figuring out the horizontal and vertical movements by using the frame by frame button. (each movement of the cockroach is when it goes from one square to the next square)
   8. When you have about 15 different frames, add all the horizontal numbers together to get a distance.
   9. Next use the ABS formula to get the displacement of the horizontal movements.
  10. Repeat steps8 and 8 to get the vertical distance and displacement.
  11. Record all of the data
  12. Place all of this data into a google document spreadsheet.
  13. Organize it so that it is understandable.
2) Data Table
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvlV7BLF_xR5dGpxYjh4YzBWUE0yeTZqX3IwNHYyUmc&hl=en_US
3) SKIP FOR NOW
4) Conclusions
     I learned that to get the displacement of the cockroach, you must first figure out the distance that he traveled. In order to get the displacement, your distance of the cockroach must be correct. To get the horizontal distance, you must add all the horizontal movements together. You also have to do the same for the vertical movements. I learned how to tie all of this data into different formulas to get the correct information. I learned how to use the absolute value formula in order to get my displacement of the cockroach. The first time my group and I were recording the data, we accidently wrote down the wrong number for our distance, which means our displacement would be wrong as well. With this being wrong, it would have messed the whole project up. We had to be careful when recording the data and double check our work. Using this cockroach experiment can be applied to determining the average range of a typical cockroach. You can also use this information to help control the pest invasion of cockroaches.