Passion project #7-The journey

As my passion project has came to an end it is now time to reflect on everything that I have done. Firstly I’m going to tell you about the pros and cons of doing an E-Learning passion project.

The pros of working at home are that you can work on your passion project for as long as you like, because your at home. The cons on the other hand is that there are not. Any teachers to help you with this project in person. The pros and cons balance each other out.

Through the this journey I had to learn to do things on my own. My parents are super busy at work and I obviously cant get help from a teacher. For example I had to learn how to research on my own. I went to different websites and took out information from all of them.

There also has been one last thing that I have truly learned about through this journey.  I love researching when I am researching something that I like.

I really hope that we do something like this again!

Blog Post #4-Learning about myself

Throughout this passion project I have done many different things,  such as writing and reading. But through this project I think that I have spent the most time on Researching. I find that when I find something interesting, and is what I am researching about, I won’t stop until I get all of the information that I need. I will just keep reading without having any will to stop.

That is another reason that I think that I chose a good topic, I chose something interesting that I want to learn about.

In addition to researching I find that I am also a big blogger. After all I have already wrote more than the required number.

I can’t wait until I finish my research and I can work on my final product.

Passion Project post- Newtons laws apply to rockets

I have been researching more about rockets In a book called, “The Encyclopedia of Knowledge“ when I came across the answer to one of my sub questions. What role do physics have on rockets. Based on what I have read, I now know that they have a huge role on rockets. Let’s start with Newton’s first law. Just in case you are not familiar With newtons laws I will right them out.

Newton’s first law:

All things will either stay still or move with a steady speed unless a force acts upon it. This idea is called inertia.

This is how the first law contributes to rocket. When a rocket sets on the launch pad with it’s engines switched off, there’s no overall force acting on it. Inertia keeps it in place so it goes nowhere.

 

Newtons second law:

When a force acts on something it makes it accelerate. To go faster, slower, or change direction.The bigger the force, the lighter the object the more it accelerates.

This is how the second law of motion contributes to the rocket, The main engines and booster rockets fie out hot gas. This creates a huge downward force that accelerates the rocket upward. In other words the engine is a force that makes the rocket accelerate upwards. The third law of motion also has a big role in this.

 

Newtons third law:

For every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

Newtons third law contributes to rockets perhaps the most out of the three laws. When I say action I really am talking about force. So when the engines burst out exhaust gas pointing down, there is an equal and opposite reaction, wich is the rocket accelerating upwards.

Newtons laws truly play a huge role in getting the rocket off the ground.

Rube Goldberg #7 – Resources/Inspiration

Over the course of my Rube Goldberg, I had a lot of inspiration. Most were on you tube. My first piece of inspiration was on a you tube channel called Bearded Science Guy

The Bearded Science guy video I watched was about making a Gauss gun. This video was where I got my first Idea of doing a Gauss gun. This video clearly showed what you need, and how to make a Gauss gun.

The second video I watched was called the craziest trick shot ever! This introduced me to the cobra weave/stick bomb. This gave me the idea to do the stick bomb.

The third thing I watched was  how to  make a stick bomb/cobra weave. This accurately explained how to make the stick bomb.

The fourth and last video I watched was called Insane Stick Bomb Chain Reactions,(by Hevish 5  This video explained how to set off the cobra weave/ stick bomb with domino’s.

All of these videos helped me along the course of my Rube Goldberg,+ they were really fun videos to watch.

Rube Goldberg #6 – Success

All I needed now was a success… And I GOT ONE!!! After 100+ tries, I finally got a success! Almost everything went as planned, the only thing that didn’t was my domino split to activate my stick bomb. My Dad knocked the domino’s down with his feet and it still worked! My project still would of worked even if my Dad didn’t knock the domino’s down, anyways. Over the course of this project I learned that if you put your mind to something, and you give it your all there is a chance of success no matter how difficult it is.
Not only I got a success, My video worked well to. In my video I explained how my Rube Goldberg worked, my fails, my success and other ideas I had in mind, (that I didn’t use.) I ended my Rube Goldberg with 28 steps, 20 more steps then expected.

Rube Goldberg was a fun project that I will never forget. It is the only project that I ever done that requires building at you or your friends house. Rube Goldberg was a great project I wish I can do again.

 

 

Hope you liked my Rube Goldberg!!!

Rube Goldberg #5 – Starting to tape

After  completing my final steps, I placed cameras all around the house to tape my Rube Goldberg in action. I plan on using more than one camera because I can get all kinds of angels, plus if one camera runs out of battery, the other cameras will still get the video. From the beginning of taping, I have been making adjustments accordingly on what fails. There have been at least 8 things that didn’t work that I fixed and then they did work without having to replace the step. There also have been times that something that has always worked didn’t. At these times we didn’t do much about it but try again. If it doesn’t work twice in a row, that means it probably has to get fixed. A lot of taping is just trial and error.

I have taken at least fifty takes now, and my Rube Goldberg is so close to working. There have been times where the last domino fails or something really close to the end doesn’t work. At the beginning I wasn’t even getting past the first step-now I am getting close to the end every time. Without a doubt, I will get a success.

Rube Goldberg #4 – Gauss gun

A while after I finished my sixteenth step, I realized once again that something on my sketch wasn’t going as planned. On my sketch a lego was going to hit a key on a computer which says “Hey siri call home.” It turned out that the lego wasn’t strong enough to press the key. After some inspiration from you tube, I figured out what was strong enough to press the button. It was a gauss gun. The gauss gun is just a ramp with magnets and metal balls. Magnets are placed throughout the track with two or three metal balls behind it. What’s supposed to happen is that a metal ball will roll down the ramp and it will get sucked into the magnet, and the force from it getting sucked in will free the farthest marble from the magnets force. The farthest marbe from the magnet will come out with tremendous speed.

The last marble will shoot out and will fall into a funnel and the marble will hit the key on the computer. The only problem with this is that the last marble that came out had so much force, it would literally knock the funnel over. The solution to this was having a bigger marble at the end so it came out with less speed. The gauss gun wasn’t just a solution, it looked way cooler.

Now I am on step 24 and I hope that I can finish the remaining steps and get a success, when I film my Rube Goldberg.

Rube Goldberg #3 – Fixing Problems

After I finished my sketch, I started building more steps to my Rube Goldberg machine. At first I thought that it would be just as hard to build the next steps as it was before, but I was proven wrong. The sketch helped me know what materials I needed and where to place them. This helped me a ton on timing.The only problem was that some things that I built kept falling down, specifically the keva planks. The sketch only showed how I wanted the keva planks, it didn’t show if it was physically possible or not. I had to make some adjustments to my sketch so my Rube Goldberg was possible.

Another flaw in my plan was the dominos. It was very difficult to set them all up. In addition to that, I am planning  to use 1,000 of them. To solve this problem I put big spaces in between sections of dominos so once I set up one section I wouldn’t knock it over again. Eventually, I would put dominos in the gaps of the sections and hope that I don’t break them. So far I have built 16 steps, and I hope to build even more.  

Rube Goldberg #2 – Sketch

After my group met, I  started building more steps to my Rube Goldberg. I was on step ten in just a few days after my group left. That’s two more steps than what’s expected. Since my group only met once and we didn’t get much out of it, I started thinking about being in a group by myself. A few days later I told my group that I was going to leave their group and work by myself. After that I felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I could get the credit for the work that I did. Since our teacher wanted everyone’s sketch next week, I decided to take a break from building and start drawing my sketch. My first sketch didn’t turn out so well. It had lines and bullet points going everywhere. I didn’t want my second draft looking like the first so I put my picture in the middle of the paper and put my notes on the sides. This was much neater and looked much better than my first sketch. I also got an idea for a future step from the draft. It was that a Lego is going to hit the enter key on a computer and that will play my dads voice, saying “Hey Siri Call Home.” There will be a phone nearby and it will call the house phone. So far everything has gone as planned and I hope to keep adding steps to the Rube Goldberg machine. My Sketch has 26 steps, and I hope I will be able to build all of the steps that I drew out.

Rocketry Reflection

Here is my rocketry slide show that me and my group made. It was a hard  but fun experience making our rocketry slide show.

It explains our rocketry unit witch includes designing, building and launching our rocket. To sum up our rocketry unit we presented our slide show to show our parents.We showed how fun the unit was and how it was cool to build our own rockets. It was hard to memorize our groups lines because in the presentation our slide show was in present mode so we couldn’t read our lines of the screen. Meanwhile our group had to compromise a lot on what to show in the presentation.

This is our rocketry slide show!

This is our rocketry presentation!

 

Thanks for watching I hoped you liked our presentation!