Reflections

Jed's Reflection

Reflection on Class

Physics 12 has been a great year and I have been learning a lot of new things. I love how currently in grade 12 we are not learning new material but instead learning extensions on what we learned last year. The first few months have gone by so fast and I feel my knowledge expanding at a great rate. In physics class we are learning velocity, projectile motion and relative velocity.

I feel that way on how I solve and do my physics problems have changed for the better. Before I used to memorize formulas but now I try to apply my knowledge instead of simply memorizing. For vectors I learned how to work with angles instead of just using scalar like problems. An example is when we solved problems with angles as 30 degrees instead of 0 or 90 degrees. This was quite new and was weird as first but I feel I understand this now. Now that I understand it feels quite easy. In fact now I feel stupid not being able to understand this. Physics is more than just memorizing formulas but I think it is about imagining the situation and thinking about the principles of physics and applying them.

 We moved on to projectile motion. Projectile motion is the study how an object travels through the air and what factors affect its flight. I learned how to split vector equations into 2 parts. One thing, I found difficult were multiple choice problems. I find that I am easily tricked by the wording of some questions. When something is worded in some weird way I just do the entire question wrong. When I do short answer questions I do them much better. I feel like my strengths are problem solving as I am able to solve problems pretty effectively. When I solve the problems I always list the all the values that were given and I think on what to do. I don’t just plug numbers into a formula. I believe that was the thing I improved on the most this year and I went to get rid of the habit of just memorizing formulas and instead apply and understand them.

Reflection on Project

In physics class, we are currently working on a Physics 12 Digital Portfolio for Mrs.Ishrad.  My group(Angus Pang, Elroy Fruto) and I(Jed Fernando) were pondering on which sport we shall choose for this project. The research question given was “How are the principles of projectile motion applied in a sport?” So we were not going to do boxing as our sport because there is no projectile motion, unless you count punching. We decided to use badminton as our sport because it was the sport that, as a group we have the most amount of knowledge on it. We decided the best way of learning of the physics of badminton was to go and actually play some badminton. We went out to “R pro” and played some badminton. We decided to film us play to have a closer look at the principles of projectile motion that is being applied.

                Using the video and watching other people play badminton; we learned that drag, momentum, force, tension and velocity are applied in this sport.

I learned that drag was air resistance was a factor in the shot as the “ball” did not go as far as I expected sometimes. Also when I went outside and played there was a greater amount of air resistance outside then there was inside the building of “R Pro.” Something I found challenging was calculating resistance. When I searched up how to calculate it there were a few terms I was unsure on how I would be able to get those values with the equipment I currently have. One example of this is air density. I am not sure on how I could measure such a thing or if I could with my tools.

We figured out that a factor of badminton is momentum.  We learned that the mass of the “ball” multiplied by its velocity with equal the objects momentum. Badminton utilise more of an impulse because when one strikes the “ball” there is momentum change. In our video when Angus shot the “ball”, the “ball” had a huge change in momentum and direction.

These I feel are the more unfamiliar topics when we first started to do this project, so when we were working on this project I learned more about these particular topics. While I was learning about them I found them harder to use and understand then the other topics such as velocity. The use of velocity was pretty in badminton was pretty clear but momentum took a little more time to figure out on how it was used and implied. Even now I still think I am missing pieces in the puzzle of momentum.  

I found velocity a rather simpler topic rather than the ones listed above. I found when I was calculating and working with the values related to velocity I had a rather easier time compared to working with momentum. I find that I understand how velocity works in the “real working” a little better now. We are constantly working with given values on a piece of paper so seeing how velocity applies in the real world was a little refreshing.

Overall this was a refreshing project if nothing else. Working away from a piece of paper is always good and fun. I learned that I am pretty good with velocity problems but I still need work with momentum and forces on a two dimensional scale.

Angus's Reflection

          I learned about how to use velocity, gravity, time, range, and acceleration to calculate two dimension projectile motion. Any projectile motion has both horizontal and vertical velocity which could be calculate through trigonometry. Knowing an objects initial velocity and the angle where it is fired at, I can calculate individually the horizontal and vertical components. Time, distance, and acceleration could be found by solving each variable. I found that the hardest part was remembering vertical height is not the distance of the object travels, but the displacement of where it starts and lands. I understood that the vertical and horizontal components are two separate calculations. The only thing common between them is time. After learning projectile motion, I am able to recognize projectile motion in real life situations. The project shows us how we interoperate projectile motion in a sport.

Elroy's Reflection                                                                                                  By: Elroy 

In physics class, we were assigned a digital portfolio project about projectile motion through a sport.I was excited, towards such a thing that was never done before by myself, and grouped together with my colleagues, Angus and Jed. We chose the sport badminton, for it seemed to be the simplest sport which we all knew fairly well about. The tests were performed at Rpro; a badminton facility.

In class we learned about horizontal and vertical velocity, horizontal and vertical displacement, and direction. All the the calculations we did in class disregarded air resistance, because it was all in theory. I understood what we learned in class because it was straight forward and did not have the factors of real life. Air resistance, tension force in the strings, momentum were not involved in class.

During the actual tests, the values were much harder to determine due to the factors of real life and manual data collecting. We had to determine the initial velocities, angles, and displacements. It was very troublesome doing it manually with a stop watch, and the data was slightly off. However, this was a fun project, and much was learned from it. We learned how air resistance and other real life factors can affect projectile motion, and understood it. Was fun but hard.