The Americanator
Our task was to complete a simple task with complex steps. We decided to launch a rocket with Donald Trump on it into the sky. We used 12 steps to complete the simple task. Our first step, was sending George Washington down the Delaware river. Dominoes then fell over and hit a marble. The marble knocked over a weight that pulled up an eagle. The marble hit a car which turned into bacon and hit another car. That car hit another car that hit a marble. The marble completed the circuit and the rocket launched up into the sky.
Our Presentation:
Our Project: In our project we had many energy transfers. One of our energy transfers was the car going down an inclined plane. The car starts with potential energy and as it goes down the ramp it transfers to kinetic energy. The five simple machines we used were a inclined plane, a screw, a lever, a pulley, and a wedge. We had many pictures to represent America like Donald Trump and McDonalds.
Calculations:We made a calculation for each step of our machine. We picked the part of physics that was most relevant to the step.
Potential Energy: Our car had a starting potential energy. We found it by multiplying the mass, the acceleration due to gravity, and the height, The potential energy is the energy an object has due to its height. Potential energy is measured in joules. The car in our machine had a potential energy before it was pushed. Force: We calculated the force of the dominoes and the weight on our pulley. We found the forces by multiplying the mass and the acceleration. Force is the amount of push or pull on an object. Force is measured in newtons and the weight on our pulley had a force when it hit the block of wood. Acceleration: We calculated the acceleration of the pig and the marble by dividing the velocity by the time. Acceleration is the rate an object speeds up or slows down and it is measured in meters per second. The pigs acceleration is the rate it sped up when it went down the ramp. Mechanical Advantage: We found the mechanical advantage of our lever by dividing the height by the length. The mechanical advantage is how easy an object makes the task. Our pulleys and levers had a mechanical advantage allowing the task to be easier. Kinetic Energy: Kinetic energy is energy due to motion and it is measured in joules. We found the kinetic energy of our car using 1/2 the mass times the velocity squared. Our marble had kinetic energy while it was in motion moving down the ramp. Velocity: Velocity is the speed in a certain direction. We found the velocities in our machine by dividing the distance by the time. Velocity is measured in meters per second and when the car falls in our machine its speed is a velocity. Principles of Design: We focused on pattern, balance, and movement. We used the pattern of red white and blue and repeated it through out our machine. We created balance by making our drawing all equal size compared to each other. We made it so that nothing moved on our project. We did this so your eyes focused on the cars and marbles of our machine.
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Reflection: Overall, our group did a nice job. We did a good job at being effective and working the whole time after the first few days. The first few days we were still learning how we all worked and we were finding our strengths and weakness. Some of our strengths were being productive and our weakness was being organized. We had great presenting skills and our machine worked most of the time. We were not able to work well the first few days. We spent a lot of time arguing over the theme and we all had very different ideas. The first few days we could have been more productive.
I learned that I am not very good at hearing every ones ideas. I did my own individual thing and sometimes did not listen to what my teammates had to say about the issue. I learned that each member in our group had a special talent. We divided the tasks so Ty focused on building, I did calculations, Madison did blueprints, and Izagani did decorations. I could have had better collaboration. For example, when I found I problem I did not effectively work with my group to fix it. We could have an easier time fixing these problems if we all worked together to solve them. Another thing I could work on is including everyone. Even though dividing the tasks was effective, we could have worked together more. For example, when we had two people working on drilling it worked well. When only one person was building it make it hard. It was difficult to hold the board, a screw, and a drill. We could have teemed up to complete tasks inside of doing them individually. |
Pictures and Video: