MiRRORS: blog 13 :)

On the college tour this spring break, one of the places we visited was Pier 39. While exploring, my friends and I found a house of mirrors, and decided to go in. Each mirror had an arch over it, and was perfectly positioned so that it seemed as if there were multiple archways. Each archway seemed to go on forever, but we couldnt tell until we came face to face with our reflections if we were going down an actual pathway or facing a mirror. This ties in with physics because we just learned how mirrors work. When light from a source reflects off the mirror towards us, the light travels in a straight line and will take the quickest path to get from Point A to Point B. When we talked to the man who built the house of mirrors, he told us that he used this physics concept to figure out the positioning for all of the mirrors, and said it took him 2 years to build the whole thing. Although it seems like the house of mirrors is large, in actuality the space is very limited and only seems big because we are forced to go around and around in circles.

WAVES: BLOG 12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f4MpeZDa_s

While we were learning about standing waves, I kept envisioning this scene from the move Miss Congeniality. In this scene, Gracie is playing a glass harp as her talent, and I learned that the glass harp works due to physics. In the glasses, standing waves are produced as the air inside vibrates at one (or more) of the glasses resonant frequencies. The amount of water inside each glass changes the pitch each glass makes, which is why she drank some of the water out of the glass that was out of tune. I found it interesting how we were learning about something that shows up in one of my favorite movies.

iNDUCED CURRENT: blog 11 :)

Current can be induced when flux changes. Flux is equal to (magnetic field)(area )(cos of angle between the magnetic field and area vectors). Induced current can be very helpful, and some devices use induced current rather than current from a voltage source like a battery. When the tsunami warning forced Hawaii into a frenzy, my mom quickly pulled out our for-emergencies-hand-crank-flashlight and kept it close at hand the whole night. Rather than relying on batteries, this flashlight requires you to crank the handle, which powers the flashlight. These devices are crucial at times in which we may lack resources.

ELECTRiCiTY: blog 10 :)

Everyone loves Christmas and the many traditions that accompany the holiday. One such tradition is decorating a tree with a string of lights. What many people don't usually think about is, if one of the lightbulbs go out, why dont the others all go out too? That is all thanks to physics :)

Christmas lights are not all connected in series, but in parallel. The difference is that when lights are connected in parallel, the lights are virtually in their own independent circuits. In a parallel circuit, the voltage difference across each section is equivalent, but the current is not. In a series circuit, because there is only one pathway for charge, the current is the same throughout. Parallel circuits are used because if all of the lights were connected in series, if any one of the lightbulbs happened to burn out, all of the lights would no longer light up because there would no longer be a complete closed circuit for the charge to travel across. 

CHARGiNG BY FRiCTiON: blog 9 :)

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/video/video.php?v=180999631925246

A few weeks ago, my friends and I got together for a "just dance 2" party. In this video, Zach and Evan are dancing to "Its Raining Men"; while the dance itself was really funny, it was even funnier when people started "zapping" each other. While we were dancing, we became charged by friction. The carpet rubbing against Zach's socks made him extra charged, and showed how rubbing two materials together causes the transfer of charge from one object to another. When two materials rub against each other, one will want to hold on to its electrons, while the other will let go of its electrons.

ANGULAR MOMENTUM: blog 8 :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gYEtBwmiPE

Physics affects many aspects of dance, including one of the hardest parts- turns. There are many types of turns: pirouettes, coupe turns, fouette turns, pencil turns, etc. etc. The speeds at which a dancer turns for each type differs- fouette turns are much slower than coupe turns. This is because Angular momentum is equal to moment of inertia times angular velocity, and because angular momentum is conserved. In a fouette turn, a straight leg is extended parallel to the ground. This increases the radius of the dancer, which causes the dancer's moment of inertia to increase, due to the fact that moment of inertia is equal to mass times radius squared. When moment of inertia is larger, then the angular velocity is less. In a pirouette, however, the radius is smaller because the leg is bent so that the foot is at the knee, which means moment of inertia is smaller. The angular velocity of a dancer doing a pirouette is larger than if the dancer were doing fouette turns, which is why pirouettes are faster than fouette turns.
This is a video from Winter Showcase two years ago, and it includes alesicon turns (which are like fouette turns because the leg is fully extended) and goes straight into pirouettes. The change in speed is a little hard to see, but when you are doing the turns, the change in velocity is very noticable.

BANKED CURVE :)

V= r (omega): blog 7 :)

In September, the 'Iolani Dance Team and Marching Band performed in the Aloha Week Parade! :) As if dancing 3.5 miles doesnt sound hard enough, sometimes the roads we dance on have bends and turns! We have to stay in our lines NO MATTER WHAT, so to help us around these turns, we use physics! :)
Linear speed depends on radial distance from the center and rotational speed.
If we are making a left turn, then the dancers on the left side must travel very little, and almost stay in place as we round the turn. The dancers on the right, however, must make long strides while maintaining our straight lines. While both sides have the same rotational speed, the radial speeds are different because the dancers on the right are traveling at a faster speed, with a larger radius.

iMPULSE: blog 6 :)

At the last dance team pool party, the whole team was putting their dancing skills to use when they jumped into the water. Instead of the traditional cannonball, there were countless straddles, aerials, and flips- we drove the lifeguards crazy... :)

Looking back, I realize that not only was that an afternoon of fun, but an afternoon of  physics as well. Since the water slows us down as we deccelerate to a final velocity of 0 m/s, the amount of time it takes is greater than it would be if we were jumping onto a hard surface.
Impulse= force times time
Since the water allows us to come to a stop slowly, the amount of force we feel as we hit the water is minimal. If we were to jump onto a hard surface, then the time it takes to come to rest is much smaller. Since force and time are inversely related, the amount of force we feel when we jump onto a hard surface is much greater. Good thing we dont feel very much force when we jump into water, or some of these jumps would have hurt.

POWER: blog 5 :)

My friends and I have a special tradition where if one of us has a birthday coming up, the rest of the group plans a day of surprises for them. My friend Chelsea's birthday was during the beginning of july, and was the last of our group's sweet 16s. After secretly coordinating the day with her parents, we successfully blindfolded her and led her into the car for the start of our day of surprises :) After the hour long road trip, we finally made it to our destination- WET N WiLD :)

We spent the whole day floating in hurricane bay, sliding down the shaka, and tanning under the sun. What I didn't realize at the time, was that physics was responsible for a lot of the fun we had racing down the waterslides.
Power (Watts) = Work (Joules) over Time (Seconds)
Work is equivalent to net force times displacement, and in this scenario, the net force was equal to the force of the current of the water pushing us down the slides, minus the friction of the floaties against the water and the bottom of the slide. Displacement was equal to the length of the silde (in meters) and the time was the amount of time taken from the beginning to the end of the slide. Because the force of the current was high, the friction was low, the length of the slide was long, and the time it took to reach the bottom was short, the power of the system was HUGE. And we definately felt it on some of these rides...

Overall, it was a REALLY fun day :)



iNCLiNED PLANES AND FRiCTiON: blog 4 :)

This past summer, my friends and I decided to make a summer to do list, filled with all sorts of fun summer activities such as a trip to the waterpark and riding a catemeran. The most adventurous thing on our list was probably hiking, since none of us had really ever hiked anything more rigorous than Diamond Head. We had heard of a beautiful hidden area called "Maunawili Falls", and decided THAT was where we were going to hike.

After what seemed like forever, WE MADE IT TO THE WATERFALL :) but my friend Daniel urged us too keep climbing, up OVER the waterfall to a hidden surprise. Reluctantly we ventured over huge pipes, across bridges, and up rocky walls until we finally found it- the moss slides.

Water from another waterfall splashed down huge rocks covered in moss, the perfect area to slide down. As we climbed up, the rocks began to make a sharper incline with the ground, and the acceleration of an object going down an inclined plane is greater than the acceleration of that same object on level ground. The farther down we slid, the faster we accelerated. iT WAS SO MUCH FUN. What also made this area perfect for sliding was the moss covering the rocks.  Friction is a force the opposes the motion of an object in contact with another object moving past it. Friction depends on the two materials in contact, which in this case would be the moss and our skin. Moss is very soft, and we had a hard time climbing up the rocks because there was so little friction.This means that the coefficient of friction, in this scenario the friction between the moss and our skin, was very little.

Friction= the coefficient of friction multiplied by the normal force

Because the coefficient of friction was so small, the overall friction was small, and therefore made it easy for us to slip. Although I'm not much of a hiker, I really did enjoy the moss slides. :)

NEWTON'S FiRST LAW: blog 3 :)

Since my past blogs have all been somehow related to dance, i tried to think of how Newton's laws affects dance. Newton's First Law is "An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside net force". I thought about the force of gravity, and how it affects a dancer.

('Iolani Winter Showcase 2010)

(Spotlight Competition 2008)

(Spotlight Competition 2008)

As a dancer, I think gravity most affects a dancer when it comes to jumps. No matter what kind of jump, we always return to the ground. Our weight, which can be calculated from the equation
Weight in newtons= Mass in kilograms times Gravity in meters per second squared
acts upon us and ends our jump. If gravity did not exist and we jumped in space, our jump would go on forever and would be much easier to do than on earth. Dance would be so much easier without gravity.

PROJECTiLE MOTiON: blog 2 :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apF44BkIkiI

Last weekend, the 'Iolani senior dance team had team bonding at my friend Kristen's house. At team bonding we divided up into teams and competed in different mini competitions such as marshmallow gun shooting and picking up the greatest number of mini m&ms with chopsticks. My favorite competition was the cookie eating competition. Everyone started with a mini cookie on their forehead, and to win they had to eat the cookie without using their hands. Some people tried sliding the cookie down their faces into their mouths, and others tried launching the cookie off one team member's forehead into another team member's mouth. Watching this video made me think of physics and projectile motion. In this case, the cookie was the projectile, and was launched from one member's forehead to another's mouth. The cookie had a vertical acceleration rate of -9.8 m/s and a horizontal acceleration of 0 m/s. The horizontal acceleration is 0 instead of -9.8 because the force of gravity is not acting upon it. Projectile motion is parabolic, which means the object travels in the shape of a parabola, which can be seen in the video while the cookie is in free fall.

FREE FALL: blog 1 :)

During spring break, the 'Iolani Dance Team traveled to Anaheim, California to compete in the Sharp International Competition. Before the competition, we visited Sea World (SHAMU!), watched jousting at Medieval Times, and performed our competition routines at the happiest place on earth- DiSNEYLAND! :) In this dance, to the song "Black Horse and Cherry Tree" by KT Tugstall, my friend and teammate Chelsea was given a tumbling routine to do while the rest of the team lined up for a kickline. Right when this picture was taken, she was in the middle of a backhandspring. Looking back at this picture, I noticed that Chelsea was in "free fall" because the only force acting upon her was the force of gravity since she was not touching the ground. I remembered that all things in free fall (in this case, Chelsea) have a constant acceleration rate of -9.8 meters per second squared.