Beth Reecer, Alix Fernando, Caitlin Jay, Briana Duran

Balloon Car Experiment

Physics is matter and it's motion combined with energy and forces. In our group we decided to do a physics experiment with a balloon car. We wanted to see how fast the balloon car would travel in .5m, 1.0m, and 1.5m. We used four different color balloons to see if one balloon might do better than another. We also made sure to blow up the balloons to .80 m for each color of balloon.

This is a picture of the balloon car. We made the car out of paper, a plastic water bottle, 4 spools of thread, tape, push pins, and straws. We found many different variations online and composed our car of the best ideas. We made a few changes to our car during the experiment because the tape we used to hold the wheels in place kept sticking. We replaced the tape with push pins later on once we observed the tape was a problem.

Newton's first law of motion is often stated as an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. F=M*A

In this video Briana is showing the first trial of our balloon car using a blue balloon. The balloon car stays in motion as the air in the balloon is slowly let out. The air coming out of the balloon allows the car to have motion by accelerating as the balloon car travels. If the balloon car was not acted upon it would remain at rest not moving at all. Since Briana blew up the blue balloon and attached it to the car the balloon car then began accelerating. The blue balloon had similar times which gave us hope for the trials to come.

Newton's second law of motion states, the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and is inversely proportional to the mass of an object. A=VF-VI/T

In this video Alix is using the red balloon to power the balloon car. We had the most trouble with the red balloon. This might have occurred because mass has a certain resistance to motion called inertia. The force on the red balloon had a push/pull upon the car resulting in an interaction. Either the balloon car would accelerate or in a lot of our trials stop and rest.

Newton's third law states, when one object exerts a force on a second object the second object exerts an equal but opposite force on the first.

In this video Caitlin had the pink balloon. The pink balloon was exerting an equal force on the car making the balloon car either accelerate or remain in its tracks on the table.

Beth used the orange balloon to move the balloon car.

Conclusion: In our experiment we learned to be patient because there were many balloon car trials that didn't work as smoothly as we hoped. After all four of the balloons had their three trials we had to calculate the speed of our balloon car. Speed is the distance over a certain interval of time.

Speed=Distance/Time

Velocity is the rate of change of a distance. Velocity represents both speed and direction.V=D/T Instantaneous, average Vinitial+Vfinal/2=Vaverage and final velocity VF=2Vaverage.

Down below is our graph for distance and time of each balloon and its 3 trials.

 Kinetic Energy

Blue Balloon is KE = 1/2*.021*2.46=0.0635418 joules

Pink Balloon is KE=1/2*.021*1^2=0.0105 joules

Red Balloon is KE=1/2*.021*.7^2=0.005145 joules

Orange Ballon is KE=1/2*.021*2.2^2=0.05082 joules

Proving Newtons laws of motion

By: Alix Fernando

Beth Reecer
Briana Duran

Caitlin Jay

First Law

For the first law we used the weight and the spring balance to demonstrate that the weight was at rest because no outside force affected it.

For the car experiment we are showing the car going at constant velocity until it runs into the backpack, which changed the velocity because of the friction and the force of the backpack.

For the marbles we showed them at rest because no force was being acted upon it so this shows Newtons first law that these two marbles will not move because the force is zero.

For the pendulum we showed it at rest with no force and in motion when we pulled back one silver ball that exerted force and caused the pendulum to move.

Second Law

For the second law we shown the weight at rest on the scale. On the scale it reads that the weight is 295 grams and we need to convert 295 grams to kilograms so now the new number is .295 kg. In order to figure out the force of how much the earth is pulling on the weight we use the equation F=ma. we calculated .295kg times 10 m/s^2 and this equals 2.95 Newtons and this is the force of earth pulling on the weight. The picture is above in the first law.

Next, shown below we have a video showing force being pulled on the spring balance because the car was accelerating.

For the marbles at rest on the table we used the equation F=ma to see how much the earth is pulling on the marbles. We used the scale to measure the weight of a marble in grams which is 6 grams. Next we converted the 6 grams into kilograms which is .006 kg. Therefore the force of the earth pulling on each marble is .006 kg times 10 m/s^2 equals 0.06 Newtons.

For the Pendulum we have a video showing a huge force by dropping the silver ball from a higher incline, which caused a faster acceleration. Next we used the same silver ball but dropped it from a lower incline which shows that it did not accelerate as great as the first one from a higher incline.

Third Law

For the cars experiment we used two blue cars and one black string that connected the rear ends of both cars. We turned on the cars and let them go in opposite directions. Because the force is the same for both cars we know that the acceleration and mass is also the same because they are identical cars. However, if one car had a lower or higher mass than the other they would still have the same force but different masses and accelerations. Therefore this proves Newtons third law that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.

For the marbles Alix and Beth had the same white clear marbles and flicked them towards each other. When the first marble hit it exerted a force on the second marble which caused the second marble to exert the same equal but opposite force on the first marble, which caused the marbles to split into different directions.

For the last pendulum experiment we lifted 4 silver balls and let them go to hit the fifth silver ball. This caused the three middle silver balls to switch back and forth between the first and fifth silver balls.This video demonstrates how for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction which causes the balls to keep switching back and forth.

Response to The Educational Value of Creative Disobedience

1- General impression of the article

2- How the article impacts you as a learner

3- How the article impacts you as a teacher and/or how this article impacts our work.

In the article, “The Educational Value of Creative Disobedience” by Andrea Kuszewski is about traditional methods of teaching vs. getting children to independently find, think, and notice the answers to a question or problem by themselves. I thought this article was amazing because it made me think about our educational system in a different way. Growing up I would always ask my dad questions about mother nature, construction, cooking, animals, people, and our native religion. Most of the time he would have answers and other times he would say ask your mom or grandma. As I started to ask questions I would find myself becoming more and  more curious and this only lead me to ask other questions. My family soon began to get tired of me asking so many questions and they started to call me question box. Today I look back on my childhood and I am proud of myself for asking questions because I never got full answers, so I would fill in whatever piece of information that I thought should be a part of the answer. I believe I have always been a creative thinker because I like to explore and find new things that interest me. My dad always has to remind me of all the creations I made as a child. My favorite creation to think about is when my dad said I grabbed a stapler, notebook paper, sat in the middle of the living room, and started making my own paper umbrella. He said he watched me with amazement because I was so little creating my own umbrella and it had a handle with a latch that opened up and closed exactly like an umbrella. I barely remember this day because I was only 4 years old at the time.

Alright, well enough reminiscing about my childhood and back to the importance of this article. I believe Kuszewski makes a good point about how traditional teaching methods only allow children to imitate, memorize, and have only one solution to a question or problem. Kuszewski explains that we should move from this traditional way of learning and encourage our children to ask questions and think about a problem or question before we give them a solution. We should also allow the children to be wrong and have mistakes because they learn from mistakes and this helps them understand why some answers are wrong and some fit a solution better. Also encouraging children to think and discuss helps their minds find more than one solution to a problem instead of everyone going by one solution and never being able to think outside the box. I like this way of getting children to think creatively and I will most likely follow this once I start teaching young children.

This article has a huge impact on me as a learner. In college I find myself following professors instructions and the best ways to get assignments done. I have no time to think for myself but follow these rubrics that are placed in front of me in order to receive a good grade. I only do the work that is asked of me and no extra work. This makes me wonder if I am learning anything at all because I take classes every semester and walk away with nothing useful but a good grade and credit. The only classes that have taught me valuable information is MATH 111, 112, Educational Psychology, and Sign Language. I believe the only reason why I remember and cherish these classes is because I was able to express my opinions and think deeper about topics and how to solve problems in many different ways. This article has opened up my mind and now I wish that teachers weren’t so stuck in their ways of giving rubrics, precise instructions, and their advice on how to earn an “easy A” in this course. I hear that same phrase every semester and it just shows that some students don’t even need to put in any extra effort because the teachers tell you exactly what you need to do to pass a certain course. They are basically holding our hands, telling us what and how to turn in assignments, and they wonder why they feel like they are reading the same papers over and over.

Next, this article impacts me as a teacher in the future because I want to help my students think and come up with creative answers and not make them follow the same specific guidelines for every assignment. For example I would give the class a lesson on multiplication and together we would come up with a definition for multiplication and what it means to multiply. I would then tell the class we can multiply by drawing, counting, memorizing, using base ten blocks or by using the lattice method. Then I would tell each child to show me or demonstrate how to multiply using all 5 ways to solve a multiplication problem. This allows the students to see how an answer can be developed using any of these techniques and that there is more than one way to get an answer. From this lesson each student should be able to walk away and feel comfortable multiplying.

I think this article impacts our class work in a positive way because you give us rubrics but they are tricky to where each student will have to come out with interesting answers. As a teacher you give us instructions but we know it’s not linear because science isn’t linear. As we get into groups we use what notes you have given us and make them meaningful to understand what we are trying to figure out as a group. As we talk in our groups we are learning more and understanding the material very well because we are able to explain it to one another and people outside of class. You also give us the ability to express ourselves through a blog and that is the best part of this class because you are able to read each students blog and learn how each student thinks. All in all this class is great and even though this is a new way for you to run your class it is working out pretty well. I do feel like I am learning and I am having fun learning so it helps get me excited to come to class every day.