1st Quarter Evaluation

This picture of Rasheed Wallace accurately represents my first quarter course and self evaluation because it shows a variety of emotions. First off, Rasheed is slightly preturbed by a call made by a referee throughout the course of a game. It parallels my feelings towards physics on certain concepts when I cannot quite grasp how to approach certain problems. Rasheed also looks frustrated about not understanding the call made on the court which is similar to how I feel about certain problems. However, just like him feeling comfortable on the court, I also feel comfortable in physics class. I know that I am learning new concepts and am continuing to improve my understanding of physics.

Camp Ride

The actual trip to the camp was tedious, as we needed to ride over long stretches of dirt roads to reach our final destination near the beach on Molokai. While we were riding, physics was definitely in play. First of all, the friction between the dirt road and the bus caused us to go much slower than if we were riding on a paved surface. This is because the uneven surfaces caused the weight of the bus to shift and therefore force the driver to slow down. However, if the dirt road was frictionless, we would not be able to drive to camp, because the wheels wouldn't be able to move the bus. Secondly, as we were riding, thousands of dust particles were pushed off the ground and into the air as the wheels exerted forces onto the ground. Part of the weight of the bus came from us, the riders. Camp had lots of physics moments, even from the very first bus ride to the campgrounds.

Summer Trip

This past summer, my family and I took a trip to Japan. While we were there, we visited various temples honoring various gods and ancient deities. Before entering the temple, we were required to wash our hands with water that would cleanse our hands and keep us pure. At the time, because I wasn't taking physics, I didn't realize that the droplets of water falling from above us at the temple were actually projectiles fallling at the same acceleration due to gravity. When the droplets landed in our cup, they came to rest due to the upward force of the cup. Although some of the droplets did not fall into the cup, we eventually caught enough droplets to wash our hands. It was kinda awkward at first trying to catch water from a source we couldn't see but we got used to it.