Wednesday, Nov 28
Physics: Gravity! There were some mix-ups with the syllabus, so they didn’t get a quiz today, but there will be one tomorrow and Friday. Minds were blown when we reviewed that two planets pull on each other with the same force of gravity, even if one is a lot smaller than the other. Whoa. Tomorrow we’ll get into the inverse square bits.
Honors: We had a long conversation about homework and laptop usage before starting waves. Waves are one of my most favoritest. Their minds were blown when I showed them how wave speed depends on medium and not amplutide.
AP Physics:Â Rotation! I did the brief overview of all of rotation (kinematics, dynamics, energy, momentum) to show that it’s all things they already know at a high level, and then doubled back to torque to start diving deeper into the differences between linear and rotational motion. Tomorrow we’ll start applying Newton’s laws to the rotating objects. Woo! Exciting!
Robotics: This is a tough one today. The weather is dreadful, and since there’s not enough room in the trailer for more than one or two people to work without putting the back of the trailer down and working outside on the pavement, there’s not going to be a lot happening in there for people learning to use tools. I think I’ll get them all started on learning design principles or something that’s pretty important. It may help sort out some of the more outlandish, destructive design ideas from students who are new and need a few constraints on their design space.
