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In this lab, we were given the task of successfully pulling out a tablecloth beneath a plate, bowl, and spoon. First I set up our tablecloth and made sure it had no wrinkles in it and laid completely flat. I then positioned the plate and bowl closer to the edge of the table. This trick allows for less error. The final step was to quickly pull the cloth down and out from beneath the items, which I did successfully in the video above.
In this experiment we witnessed Newton’s first Law of Motion. The first law explains that objects in motion stay in motion and objects at rest stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside, unbalanced force. The force of the friction between the plate and cloth while it was being pulled was not enough to pull the plate, bowl, and spoon out of their rest state. This lab falls under the Critical Thinking category because you must understand the law of Inertia in order to make the experiment work. Knowing the special tips and tricks on how to be successful was helpful as well.
Over the course of a few weeks, my group of three classmates constructed, tested, and raced a small car powered by the carbon dioxide pressure build up of yeast growing. Below is a timeline of our process from construction to race day.
10/15: Our group wrapped up the construction of our car. We chose to follow the booklet and make no big modifications to the design of the car. We used small beams with holes, wheels, tubing, nuts, bolts, two syringes, and string.
10/16: We experimented with different sugar to yeast ratios by just experimenting with the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast. We mixed two different ratios, 1:1 and 1g sugar: 0.5g yeast. We put the mixtures along with warm water into a syringe with a tube connected to it. The tube was then placed inside another syringe submerged in a tray of water. After about 20 minutes, we recorded the amount of water displacement. We decided 1:1 worked better.
10/22: Based on our previous ratio experiments, we tested the ratios 1g sugar: 0.75g yeast and 0.6g sugar: 0.5g yeast. After repeating the same steps, we concluded that the 1 gram of sugar and 0.75 grams of yeast produced the most amount of carbon dioxide build up. This was the ratio we would use for race day.
10/23: After figuring out the proper sugar to yeast ratio, we worked on making final adjustments to our car and syringes. We created new holes in our syringe with a match and nail in order to stop the plunger from bursting out of the syringe on race day.
10/24: Using our ratio and proposed nail placement, we tested out our car. We mixed the sugar, 20 ml of warm water, and yeast, poured it into the syringe, blocked the plunger with the nail, and set it down. While waiting, we noticed the syringe started to leak the yeast mixture because the hole from the nail was too big and we used too much water. Regardless of the leak, the car moved after about thirty minutes of waiting. We decided to create a new, smaller nail hole before racing it the next day and to use only 7 ml of water.
10/25: With jittery hands our group frantically measured out our sugar to yeast ratio and added it to the 7 ml of warm water. We were so nervous that we put the mixture into our syringe before connecting the syringe to our car. We got it to connect, wound up our string, and set it on the start line. After about 20 minutes, our car took off at a good speed. It looked like it was going to win, but our lever hit the ground, stopping the car from advancing any further. Despite the engineering flaw, we still passed the lab.
My ability to reword questions into answers improved since the beginning of the quarter through completing “Cultura” assignments. These assignments require us to take information we find in an article based on questions written on the board, and then figure out how to rewrite them in Spanish. Practice truly does make perfection, and after repeatedly doing this task, it has become much easier. In these cultural articles, we sometimes learn about famous Hispanics. I really enjoyed learning about Lin-Manuel Miranda solely because of his love for music and his ability to do good things with his talents. I also really enjoyed learning about Juanes because we got to sing along to his music and attempt to translate it. My favorite people to learn about were the miners of Chile who got trapped underground and there amazing stories of courage and survival. By taking part in these assignments, my brain has gotten used to picking out and matching key words asked in the question and I am now able to put them in the answer. This skill was transferred into reading our short news articles as well. Being able to go through and translate the article after attempting to read it in Spanish has helped me get used to recognizing and translating phrases. I can go through articles and understand a good chunk of it before going over them in class. By going through the article in Spanish and English, I can easily find where the article talks about a certain question, search for words mentioned in the question, and then answer the questions. After reading through the article twice, translating it, and answering questions, I have a good grasp on the article. I then can try and figure out how to explain it in Spanish words I understand, which comes with ease now. Another thing we work on in class is vocabulary. Because I have two other college classes going on along with this class, vocab is usually not looked at outside of class until the test comes up. I need to improve on the procrastination habit by looking at smaller chunks of vocab each night until the test. Before the test I could then focus on what I really don’t know. I put a lot more effort into learning grammar by practicing outside of class and really paying attention in class. I could improve by lengthening my study time outside of class and even practice speaking with it. My Spanish class is a very safe place with classmates who are easy and fun to work with. If someone messes up, no one is judged or laughed at out of meanness. We may all giggle together about it, but no one is ever looked down upon. In the next quarter, I plan on increasing my time spent on Spanish outside of class. I also want to work on learning the material and then remembering it, not just throwing it out once the unit is over.