Week 4 Blog

 1. This week in the lab, we were attacked by four bees. Besides the four bees, I finally understood all of the forces being enacted when someone is sliding down a slide. This includes the gravity force moving downward, the friction from the slide, and the friction pushing the rider up the slide (moving against gravity). We also discussed air drag on objects and how that affects the speed at which objects fall depending on the size of the object. This mostly has to do with the size of an object and less to do with the weight of an object. This largely had to do with this week's question, "Why do things fall at different rates?" The experiment we performed used a makeshift swing made from a wooden stick, string, and a washer. We investigated whether wind affects the rate at which objects fall, so we used a fan as wind and conducted eight trials, four with wind and four without. We concluded that there is not a large enough time gap in the trials to conclude that wind has a major impact on the rate at which objects swing back and forth. 

2. The first thing we learned in the lecture this week was the different pulls on a tire swing. When I first designed my tire swing I was not nearly correct, and labeled gravity and friction in the wrong places. The lecture clarified how all of the forces work together. We also investigated the period of the swing. While I had already finished my press book reading, it was a good refresher to learn how the length of the rope is the only thing controlling the swing period. We also talked about Newton's 1st and 2nd Law, which helped me understand how the swing slows to a stop. 

3. This week, the press book mainly discussed pendulums and energy in motion. This talked about the energy pendulums contain when swinging freely in terms of potential energy, kinetic energy, and Newton's 1st Law. The book and the lab talked about how the way a pendulum swings back and forth is determined by the length of the pendulum, not the angle it was released or the weight at the end.