When we started this project, we went over background knowledge about all different kinds of waves including light waves, sounds waves, microwaves, etc. After we had knowledge about how waves worked, we started formulating our own experiments. My partner and I decided to focus on the human eye perceives color, and how wavelengths affect vision.
To start this project off, my group had to choose/create a topic that our environmental documentary would be based on. My group chose to focus on why Colorado has the highest rate of avalanche deaths and injuries in the country. Once we had our topic decided, we started looking for people to interview for our documentary, to ensure that our interviews were well done, we studied camera angles and basic photography composition. After collecting the interviews we needed, we started searching for B roll and A roll to add to our documentary. For our science lesson, we created a stop motion explaining the details of how avalanches are triggered, and what can cause them. The end of the project consisted of editing our footage, and creating our final product in iMovie.
Rube Goldberg Project
For our second project of the year, we studied Rube Goldberg, a man who became famous for his cartoon strips, but then began creating machines that got a simple task done through a number of complicated steps. The goal for our project was to create a Rube Goldberg machine using different aspects of physics that we were learning like velocity, force, etc. Soon after we had basic understanding of how to calculate the aspects I went over above, we began working, breaking up the construction with small labs and assignments. My group decided that our machine was going to make coffee. Other groups goals were to turn on a light, make toast, and many other ideas. Once the project was over, the 9th grade class had an exhibition displaying the Rube Goldberg machines, and the ways that they calculated force, velocity, kinetic and potential energy, and others.
Here are some of the talking points that we used at our exhibition -
One of the concepts that applies to our contraption the most is momentum. Most of the issues we ran into with our project were in terms of momentum, either having too much, or too little. Therefore, because of these issues, and some labs that we completed, we have a good understanding of momentum. It applies to our rube in controlling how fast marbles and dominoes need to go, in order to get our rube to work.
We started our design for our rube goldberg with a brainstorm. After watching some video inspiration, we came up with ideas of what our end goal would be. When we had decided our end goal, we brainstormed and sketched out each step.
We learned lots of construction skills. At first, the rube was very unstable, but the more work we did, we began to understand building concepts. We learned about supports and how to make objects more sturdy. We also all learned to drill at advanced levels as well as to cut using the electric saw.
Here is a link to the video of our Rube Goldberg machine, as you'll see in the video, it didn't work completely without assistance, but before moving our project, it had a fairly consistent rate of working completely without assistance. This video will give you an idea of how our project worked.
Here is the analysis of our steps -
Blow up balloon, marble rolls down
Marble goes down track
Dominos get knocked over by the marble
Then domino's hit a another marble that rolls down a stair track
Marble hits a bigger marble
The bigger marble goes down a tube
The big marble hits scissors which pokes the wax paper that's blocking water
Water releases into the filter
Water will go down a ramp into the mug
The water going down the ramp will trigger dominos to fall
The dominos will hit a golf ball
The golf ball will tip a piece of wood
When the wood tips the cream pours into the mug
The golf ball keeps going and falls into a cup on a pulley
The other side of the pulley with a sugar cube lifts up and falls on a tube
The sugar cube then falls into the cup concluding our rube goldberg
Project Description - For this project we started off by created a question that we were interested in, that an experiment could be created from. For the first week, we planned out our experiments, whether we wanted to use a survey, and hands on experiment, or look up past studies to get an answer. I decided to look up research and find studies that correlated with the question I created "Does listening to an excessive or unreasonable amount of loud music have a negative effect on teen hearing?" Then in the following week, the experiments were carried out, and data collection was finished. We then started the final product, which in my case was an infographic (shown). The infographic shows all the information that I collected from my research in this project, and answers my main question that I created.
Reflection - Over all, I think in this project I have grown the most in formulating scientific questions, and time management in the classroom. At the beginning of the year I struggled a bit in formulating questions that could have an experiment based off it. I now understand variables much better, so I can create better questions for experiments in the future. In terms of time management in class, I think it did very well with that, because I barely ever had homework outside of class, and always turned the different aspects of the project in on time.
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