Last weekend we were discussing about Electroscopes. Electroscopes are like scientific instruments used to find the appearance of an electric charge. A way electroscopes find electric chargers is by the movement of the electrostatic force that is against a test object. An electroscope can’t really give the best indication of the amount of chargers that are there but its still a very good scientific instrument and more charges on the test object the more it’s proportional to its voltage. The electroscope requires hundreds to thousands of volts and since that many volts are required electroscopes are used for mostly high voltage sources that are for example static electricity and electrostatic machines. There’s still more that I can learn about this is all the information that I know for now.

A few days ago in class we were talking about crankshafts. I didn’t get what a crankshaft was but soon later discovered more about it. The shaft is bent out so it can convert into circular motion. It sounds a bit confusing but to sum it up a crankshaft is essentially the backbone of an combustion engine. What the crankshaft is responsible for is the correct operation of the engine and that its converted into a circular rotational motion. A lot of the times you can find a crankshaft in a car. In cars you can most likely find them in the bottom end area of an engine. Crankshafts were a little confusing to understand but now I know that they are important mechanical devices.

In class I am learning about Cam mechanisms. A cam is a moving piece in a mechanical linkage. A cam is especially used when transforming a rotating motion and a cam is most often apart of a rotating shaft or wheel. Cams are in many areas of metal machines such as cars and cutting machines that food industry’s use which make’s cams important. Cams are important because they operate the exhaust valves and without exhaust valves in control everything might fill up with gas and stop working. Cams are mostly in our every day lives.

Levers is one of the many things I learned about in class but when I think of a lever I think of an actual lever you would just pull at but I learned about some other things that are levers.  For example a catapult is a lever, a shovel is a lever, a beam is a lever, a crowbar is a lever and etc..! I used to describe a lever as a machine you would pull at to active something but now how I would describe a lever is a bar that rets on a pivot that is used to provide help for moving heavy things.

Today in Technology class we were discussing about levers. A lever is a rigid bar that rests on a pivot, used to move heavy objects and today everyone was assigned to make a catapult. A catapult is a ballistic device that is used to launch things from a great distance without the assistance of gunpowder. We’re supposed to make a catapult with popsicle sticks and then try making a game with the catapult! I haven’t come up with a game yet but it was very fun to make the catapult and it only took me 3 try’s to make the catapult perfect and ready enough to launch stuff.

I am doing the Truss Experiment! What I’m doing for the Truss experiment is making a cube out of tooth picks with the supports of Baby Carrots. When I’m done building my cube I’m supposed to see how many books I can balance on top of it. The amount of books my Truss can hold is up to 4 books! This was a fun experiment and I will probably do this again soon!

Building our colony was fun. Some of my friends say ” It is hard to build its not that fun to build fun” but I did not agree. Building the colony was hard though they were not wrong but just making something makes you feel proud and that’s one of the reasons why I like building but it’s fun because you get to be apart of something an you get to make whatever you want and your idea is into what you build. Then you get to paint what you build. Like if you made a house you would paint brown or maybe black or any color you would choose. Painting was my favorite but I left a bucket of paint on the roof and it fell on my head! But that didn’t stop me! It was really messy but it was funny. I kept on building and some walls had wholes in them so I had to put more wood. Even though it was fun building and painting I was getting worried if we run out of material. I did tell everybody but then when then the people who were building showed a lot more supplies then I said next to me and everybody else. I kept on building. I was building the fence to protect everybody from any danger. I also made my house and it was fun actually getting to build it and see how it looks like. I would say I did a good job. I painted my house brown and some people painted there’s black me and everybody else painted the fence green from in and outside. I would say there were no arguing and some times we just had to go what other people did. I must say it is much easier to stick to what people did then arguing about what people did. Also if we did argue then I would think we would not have any houses finished! But every house is made out of wood so I think we will be good. So far everything is fun and everybody is agreeing and I am sure everybody is ready for cold weather.

Blog post #3

By:Elah Degani  

Things me and my group did to the maglev train was to put to magnet rings on each side. So it can be even with the new track. We made it even because if it was uneven then it would just stop moving.

My group and me put three string magnets on each side for the track. And then we tested our maglev train and the track to see if it worked. And it did we gave it one little push then BOOM it went across the track without tilting or stoping! It was a complete success.

I learned that you always need to make sure what you are doing with magnets before you put them together. And always make sure thing are even. And the maglev train was really hard to make but me and my group finally did all that hard work paid off. Also working with a group was great it made everything much easier.   

I am now a published author! I have written a book about a topic I’m an expert on.