Okay. So who is this Ohm guy? His full name is Georg Ohm. (And yes. It’s spelled Georg. That’s not a typo. He has such a strange spelling name in my opinion. No offense Ohm!)
He was born on March 16, 1789, in the university town of Erlangen, Bavaria. His little brother, Martin Ohm, also became a famous mathematician! Johann Wolfgang Ohm, his father, was a locksmith. Maria Elizabeth Beck, his mother, was a daughter of a tailor. She died when Georg was ten.
“Ohm’s Law states that the current passing through a conductor is proportional to the voltage over the resistance,” says ducksters.com.
This may sound very confusing. I’m a little bit confused myself! But it can be written in a simple formula: I = V/R. I is currents in amps. V is voltage in volts. And R is resistance in ohms.
Voltage divided by current is resistance. Resistance times current equals voltage. Just like math. I don’t like math.
Hey! Ohm is not a thing. He’s a person! But an ohm CAN be defined as “an electrical resistance between two points of a conductor,” as said by Wikipedia.
So I guess when you say “ohm”, it could mean a person or a thing! Kinda like a noun. Haha.
Now, we’re on the final part: making our presentation. For me, it’s pretty simple considering I just have to make a slideshow with pictures and a few words. But some people are making movies/videos from iMovie, WeVideo, and Adobe Spark.
Answering my main inquiry question was not that hard, but not that easy. Making my script was nerve-wracking. I asked my mom for help on reducing my script, but she helped me get more information. I was scared that my script would end up longer than five minutes, because that’s the maximum time your presentation can be, but it was three minutes and thirty seconds! I was pretty surprised because my script was pretty long.
Overall, I think Capstone was a really good experience for me because I got to interview people, I got to work with deadlines, and it was just fun!
Yesterday, on June the second, I had my Capstone interview. I interviewed the EPA Regional Energy Star coordinator, Juan Gutierrez. I was super nervous because I was afraid that I would mess up, and also because I was interviewing an EPA coordinator, and he’s a professional! But at the end, the interview ended up well.
Around fifteen minutes before the interview, I talked with my mom, and she gave me some tips. For instance, if your interviewee stops talking for a second, don’t hurry on to the next question. They are willing to give you information, just ask them if they are done talking.
When the interview started, I was a bit nervous and scared. A few minutes before, I was so nervous and pacing around a lot.
At the end, I was so much happier. I was late on the deadline for the interview, and was super nervous that I might not get enough information. But it was a great experience for me, and I definitely enjoyed it.
My grade is starting a project called Capstone. Capstone is where you find a topic, and answer a question about it. You have to make a presentation and present it to people. My topic is global warming, and my main inquiry question is “What is the economic effectiveness of planting trees to reduce global warming and how can it be made more effective?”, and I want to try and find information to answer that question.
I think what was helpful while choosing my question was my teacher. She helped us by making a Zoom meeting for us, and had a Google Doc made for us so that we could find our interests and then she would guide us even more. I am very grateful for that.
I was a little stressed about what my teacher would think about my Google Doc questions, and I was a little scared that my teacher would be disappointed in how my questions were formed. But I forgot that my teacher’s motto was “No Stress”. And at the Zoom meeting, it actually took about 8-10 minutes! I thought it would take about half an hour!
Capstone seems like a very fun project, and I looked forward to it ever since I knew about it. In fourth grade, we got to see the fifth graders’ presentations. It was really interesting, and got me even more excited for Capstone. But now, I realize how much work it is to do the work. That’s what I always realize when I start working on stuff.
I think that Capstone is really fun, and that I’m really happy that my school has this project.
During gym class, we were learning curling. Curling is supposed to be played on ice, but of course, schools wouldn’t be able to have an ice rink. My PE teacher first taught us how to curl in 3rd grade. At first, we first threw beanbags to get used to playing. You have to bring your hand back, lunge, and throw the beanbag at the same time you lunge. Next, we started using blue and red stones and playing against other pairs. When my PE teacher told us to do rock, paper, scissors, and if I won, my partner and I would either choose the color or the hammer. The hammer is when you get the last hit. It’s good because you can knock out the other team’s stone, or you can knock in one of your teammate’s stones into the house. Sometimes, though, I choose color because either the color stone is better, or I just feel like it. Then, we learned how to use a carpet to slide. It was the hardest part of the unit. Sometimes, I’d slide, and then the stone would turn to the right, and would avoid the house. The house is where you want your stone to go in. The closer your stone is to the button (the middle of the house), the better. But everyone only gets one stone each. Sliding on the carpet was easy. But coordinating it while sliding the stone was hard. That’s all the stuff I’ve learned so far. Hopefully, I’ll be able to learn to sweep. Sweeping helps the stone move farther. I really want to continue to learn how to curl, and hopefully, I will. Curling is a good sport, and it teaches you to have good sportsmanship. You should try it, and maybe you’ll like it, too.
On October eighteenth, my team, the New Newtons, had our second launch. I think that our second launch was really good, even though when we checked how high our rocket went, it was lower. I think this happened because two of our fins were wiggly, so we pulled them off and our teacher aide glue it back on, except one side of our rocket had no fins, so the fin placement was really important. Our variable change was our nose cone, because it was really dirty. So we made it pointier on our second nose cone, and I think it turned our really well. On launch two, it was really windy and cold. I think the wind affected the launches for every group. I think that the clinometer readings could be wrong, because it was really chilly, so the clinometer readers might have moved a bit while taking the reading. The hardest part about the whole entire process was that when making the changes, everyone’s decision counted, it wasn’t just my decision, which was pretty hard for me. This is my YouTube video of my model rocket launches.
I did a rocket launch today. I think it was pretty fun. I was nervous that my rocket might blow up, but I put six layers of tape to connect the nosecone with the body. In the beginning, we had to do research. I didn’t like it. It was boring to me. But I did like making the inspiration boards. My team made a logo with our team name, the New Newtons, on it. We put pictures and information that we thought would help us on the launch on our board. A few days before, we had to prepare and learn to use the tools that we’ll be using on the launch day. One of them was the clinometer. The clinometer looked like a protractor with an arrow, a button, and a handle. Mastering the clinometer was hard. I was afraid that I would fail to use the clinometer rightly when the launch day came. There was also another tool: the trundle wheel. The trundle wheel measured the distance between the clinometer readers and the rocket. It was very resourceful. The preparation was tricky, but fun. I had three jobs, but only one for my launch. I was the countdown person for my launch. I was really happy to have that job. But I also was a clinometer reader for the group 1,2,3 Blastoff! and was a data recorder for the group the 3 Engineers. After the launch, I really wanted to do it again. I never wanted to stop. My teacher said that it would take an hour minimum for all the rockets to launch, but instead, it took forty five minutes. I think my group worked really well. We didn’t fight. I had to keep on checking my clipboard to see when I was up. And after I did my first job, I almost forgot that my group’s rocket was going to launch, and nearly missed the launch. But good thing I checked my clipboard. It was very useful. We were allowed to bring our iPhones outside. Some people did. I recorded some of the launches for two people. I observed that even though our rocket was the smallest rocket, we went higher than a taller rocket. So I don’t think that the height of the rocket mattered. But we had eight fins, and I think that helped. I don’t think our rocket needs changes. Maybe more tape?
