Grades in HAC

Pay no attention to the overall grade in HAC. I will calculate your grade differently to take into account certain strengths and weaknesses in your work and aptitudes.

In addition your extra credit including those from tests is a separate category that gets included separately in each quarter grade.

Use the HAC to see if you are behind in labs or homework and if there are any discrepancies between my records for these items and tests and what you think is correct. Do not use it for detailed grade calculations

Seating Plans

Tomorrow we will have new seating plans. I received zero input from anyone so far so these are my best guess. These will form the basis for lab groups and study groups, so think about any changes you would like to see. I will accept requests for next quarter. Make them privately

AP Labs

Several of you have labs or resubmittals that are overdue. Essentially, only the projectile labs should be outstanding at this time. Any outstanding resubmittals including labs marked see me should be in the in folder by Tuesday afternoon.  If not they will be given low grades. Any original not in my hands by Thursday  will get a zero. 

AP Projectile Lab

Note that you lab does not have address what is called conclusion in the lab sheet. Focus on the analysis and results. Do explain your reasoning behind your calculations and how you found vifor the horizontal shot and eventually  delta x for the diagonal shot.

What I mean by reasoning is something like time of flight is change in velocity in y direction divided by a in y direction and vyf can be found from kinematic equation Dy = (vyf squared- vyi squared)/2a rewritten for vyf.

Your conclusion should refer to how successful you were in learning and applying equations governing projectile motion.

Honors Section 2 ( Period 6) Labs

Four of the Section 2 students have not turned one or two labs or not resubmitted a lab.  These are late as of close of school Friday and will receive lower grades. Labs not received by Tuesday close of school become zeros and will have a real effect on you first quarter grade. If you think you turned in a lab that you do not get back tomorrow, see me immediately after the class begins tomorrow's lab. 

Honors Worksheets

I have posted 4 new worksheets under Honors Materials. These are to be done on Tuesday and Wednesday in the following order: Force WS 1 Force WS 2. Physics WS F1-1R1, UnifAccWS1. Complete at home what you don't finish in class.

All Students, Good News

I will be out Tuesday 9/30 and Wednesday 10/1. Bring in worksheets as noted in your schedules so you don't waste time not doing physics (and driving the sub crazy). They will be collected on Wednesday, so that I, like Santa Claus, can see who has been naughty or nice.

Urgent Honors Lab

Folks, your lab for this week is posted under Honors Materials. READ IT TODAY. Remember, reading quizzes are possible!

Worksheets will be posted within a couple of hours; as soon as I think of ones tough enough for such  talented students.

AP Homework

Much of the homework shows very original and some very quaint approaches to many of the problems. IF only these new approaches were anywhere near correct. We will spend the next day or two reviewing the basics of kinematic equations once more. Bring in all your homeworks for kinematics and your Physics Tours Mini Lab.

I will continue to insist that you write equations explicit for the quantity being found. I will also continue to demand that you understand where your equations come from rather than just quote the text or other source.

Honors Research Auto Transmission and Torque Convertor Site

Hey gang, try this site. Use the next and back to move from page to page and the up  for the table of contents. There are sections on automatic transmissions.

www.tpub.com/conent/construction/14273/css/14273_165.htm

AP Shooting for A Lab

Do not do the conclusions, just show all calculations and your prediction and the actual distance ( when we get that far)

Honors Free Fall Lab

1)I have posted a copy of the free fall lab sheet under Honors material.

2) N0te that Column E is found from Column D/delta t. (it originally said Column C/delta t).

AP Review Sessions and Study Groups

1) There are about a dozen students in my AP classes who are struggling at the moment. This is largely due to lack of facility with some key math elements including algebra and trig. This is largely very curable. I will hold review sessions twice a week to help remedy this. Please get together with each other and decide when it would be best to hold these sessions. They can be before school MTWF and after school MTThF. 7th period MTWThF or 2nd MTW could also work.

2) We will soon establish study groups including every student. These will be required to meet at least once per unit, for 40 minutes minimum outside of class hours. Let me know about specific preferences or needs before I assign groups.

All students: Not all curves are exponential

Many of you have picked up the bad habit of referring to all non linear curves as exponential. Exponential growth means the quantity goes as a constant to the t power i.e. K raised to the t power.

K to the t is very different from t to the k. In our constant acceleration labs displacement went as t squared or t to the 2, not as anything to the t power.

Curves that goes as t squared are parabolic not exponential.

Honors research Topics in Physics

Your vacation is almost over. Its time to pick your topic folks. We will finish up the mysteries and intrigues of transmissions and move on to the differential. We amy get back to combustion for a day or two, but you proposals for your independent work are due Friday. It should be a couple of paragraphs about what you will cover and how you will present your results. The word powerpoint is not a sufficient description. I'll try to approve them all by Monday. Real outlines with references are due the following Monday.

Honors Schedule for Unit 2

he schedule for Unit 2 will be posted in 5 minutes, I hope. Worksheets etc. to follow i na few days.

AP Vector Lab

I must be getting soft. DON'T do the extension.

Do read the post of Saturday

Grades Posted

I have posted your grades and they should appear on the HAC.

1) I cannot see  what you see  on HAC so I am not sure if its saying what I told it .

2) ME means you will take a makeup exam

3) Honors has had only quizzes so far and so the test grade, which is a weighted cumulative for all three quizzes, is still not really a major factor in your grade AND more conventional material and tests will be coming. Also labs have not been included yet and those of you ( usually  a great majority) who are willing to put some effort in will do well on labs. Therefore do not be discouraged if your current grade is low, and don't become overconfident if your current grade is high.

AP Labs

1) The free fall lab is due Monday. It is a formal lab. See your course guide for how to prepare your report. You may use a spread sheet and its graphing features.

2) The vector lab is due Tuesday. You must show the two vector addition drawings specified in the lab and provide a one or two sentence summary of the lab. Also, you must answer all the questions in full sentences or equations such as A+B= etc.. You can do this on the lab sheet itself if you can do it neatly enough for me to read it. Nothing else is required for this lab.

Engine Physics

Here is the site Sarah found:

http://www.mb-soft.com/public2/engine.html

For tonight, figure out how many joules of fuel energy we need for one cycle of one cylinder based on the watts ( joules /sec) required to produce 241 Nm (or joules per radian) at 3000 rpm.

The cylinder is one of six and only fires once every two revolutions. Assume 100% efficiency and we'll correct for that tomorrow.

Honors Assignment

Your math worksheet assignment is posted on the website. Look under Honors Materials for some notes and a worksheet.

Forum on Medicine Summer Program

There is a national Forum on Medicine summer program for students interested in medical careers. It is costly but students who have taken have liked it. See me ASAP for info

AP Unit 2 Schedule etc

The schedule and materials for Unit 2 2 Dimensional Motion are posted under homework and under materials.

Honors Material

See the website Honors Material for some notes on converting heat to usable energy ( or eat to energy)

Honors 9th period ( Section3)

At the conclusion of class today there were two spark timers and one buggy left out. If they are still left out by the beginning of second period you lab grades will be severely reduced.

AP Kinematics

I am posting some notes on today's lesson in AP Materials. The title will be something like Kinematic Equations vs Quadratic Formula. I'll also posted solutions to problems 51 and 58 and the balloon parachute jumpers problem.

Correction to Honors Lab

The second sentence on the lab should say 10 Hz NOT 1/60 th.

AP and Honors Kinematics

This post contains information that is a review for AP and needed by Honors to do the lab.

Kinematics is the study of motion, kinematic quantities include position (x), displacement delta x = (xf -xi), velocity v = delta x /delta t or ([xf-xi]/[tf-ti], and acceleration a delta v/delta t or ([vf-vi]/[tf-ti]).

x at the end of the interval = xf, x at the start of the interval = xi; i.e. f is for final value and i is for initial value



To find the velocity for a given interval of time simply find the change in position and for that interval of time and divide it by the time that interval lasted.

To find the acceleration for a given interval of time simply find the change in velocity and for that interval of time and divide it by the time that interval lasted.
velocities or accelerations can be average, if the interval includes the whole period of motion, or instantaneous, if the interval is a relatively short time within the period of motion.
Position is typically plotted on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis.

Slope mean change in vertical coordinate/ change in horizontal so for a position vs time grpah slope = delta x/ delta t.

Lab Sheets for Honors and AP

Check the materials pages of my website. I am posting lab sheets there. Note that somehow Oncourse decided to leave out the first letter of the titles such as the H in Hon and the A in AP, but just download them, print them, and bring them in for you lab this week.

Honors Section 2, please use the revised sheet you will find there, except realize that most of you chose time intervals of .3 or .2 seconds rather than .1 sec, so adjust accordingly.

Project Opportunity

An organization promoting science and engineering education is running a competition. Teams are asked to develop an invemtion that solves a real life problem. For example, some way to get light where you want it without wasting light on the rest of the room, assuming where yu want it changes and you don't want to wear a head lamp. Or something like a thermostat that detects whether there is someone in the room and adjusts itself accordingly.

The competition is strong but the rewards are impressive: recognition, visits, lectures from Nobel Laureates, showing your folks you're not as dumb as they thought you were.

Email me if you are interested and I'll get you the details.

Topics in Physics( Honors Research 1st ,8th periods)

Your current assignment is to find read and try to digest material on basic flame propagation or explosion propagation that is relevant to what goes on in an automobile engine.

You should have your material selected and at least perused ( looked at) by tomorrow.

Our discussions tomorrow and probably Thursday however will focus on, force torque, power and rotational motion. This does NOT mean you are off the hook for the assignment until Friday.

Problem Sheets, Worksheets, etc.

Home work is to be done on clean sheets of paper not as markups of problem sheets or other handouts. Marked up sheets will not receive credit as homeworks.Homework should show evidence of work performed not just answers.

Honors Quiz

After all that gloom and whining I expected the worst when I graded your quizzes. Fortunately that's not what I saw. The median grade was a B+ in H2 and a solid B in H3. 

Not bad guys; I guess you did learn somethings in the past two days.

Average velocity

To find average velocity when an object travels at each velocity for a different period of time you cannot sum the velocities and then divide by the number of velocities.
vavg = (v1+v2+v3)/3 is not right unless delta t1 =delta t2 =delta t 3.

In other words this method only works when the time periods are the same for each velocity.

AP Math Review

The Unit 1 Math Review is now posted in AP materials and homework. It is due Thursday

AP Math Review

Sorry guys about the math review. I'm not really crazy about it and I meant to revise it before posting it. I just forgot it was due tomorrow. I'll revise it and post it on the website to be due Thursday.

Text Books

Text books are not needed for class unless you are specifically told to bring them in

AP and Honors Assignments

1) Everyone, Student info forms and the signature page from your course guide are due tomorrow Tue 9/9

2) Everyone, send me an email with you name in the title, extra credit if you get your parents to do the same

3) AP-3 ( 3rd period class) Your first two text book assignments are due Wednesday. AP-4 your first text book assignment is due tomorrow Tue 9/9