Fun with a Fire Extinguisher

I woke up at around 7:30 this morning. I had slept much better last night, though I was woken up by the RC (Resident Counselor) knocking on my door to see if I was in there by the curfew. Hopefully, I will figure out a way for this not to happen. I had some toast for breakfast, and then walked to my class. I arrived about 20 minutes early.

The first thing we did in class today was a lecture on kinematics. This was basically how position, speed, displacement, acceleration, and velocity relate to each other. We had a break, and then a lecture on dynamics, which brought force and mass into the equations. We went over fields and Newton's laws. These were almost entirely review for me, but I am sure that many others appreciated the lectures. I was glad to have an opportunity for a quick review. Next, we headed to the lab. Those of us who had taken physics before were able to choose a topic to investigate. I chose to investigate the curve of descent that makes the ball reach the bottom in the fastest amount of time. (Wikipedia article). The lab had a few of these made, and the project was extremely open ended. We were allowed to analyze whatever we wanted. A fellow student, Connor, and I used a camera to capture a video of the ball rolling. We then imported it into some software, and were able to get it to input data about the ball's position versus time. This allowed to to look at various equations. It was an extremely fascinating project which I will hopefully continue tomorrow. I especially liked how open-ended the project was. It felt much more like real science, instead of just looking something up in a book. I was able to explore a subject, which will likely prepare me for a career in the real world much better. In the real world, there won't be answers in the back of the book.

The fire extinguisher setup

After this, it was time for lunch. We had lost track of time because we were so engrossed in the project, so we were half an hour late. I had a bit of pizza, and then returned to the classroom. Our teacher realized he hadn't done a demonstration of Newton's third law. He brought out a cart with a fire extinguisher attached to it. Fire extinguishers typically have a valve that prevents them being used as rockets. Bill Berner had taken that bit out. He sat on the cart, and let it rip. An enormous cloud billowed out behind him, knocking over the boxes he had placed there. The cart went forward. It was extremely exciting. Our teacher really seemed to enjoy it as well. Our teacher seems to really enjoy teaching all of the class. It is wonderful to have a teacher who likes what he is doing.

Whizzing past on a fire extinguisher

He then introduced the telescope lab we would soon do. In it, we built our own telescope from two lenses and some PVC pipe to read a fortune at the bottom of a long pipe. The fortune for my group read "Nature, time, and patience are the three great physicians." I much preferred building the telescope to the fortune itself. After the lab was introduced, Bill Berner told us about what we will do on Friday. We will go to a car museum, with 60 fast but street legal cars with good racing records. Given that there are cars there worth millions, we will naturally be rolling bowling balls around. We will try to get them to follow certain paths, only using brooms to touch the balls. This is to demonstrate inertia. We then actually did the telescope lab, and then went back to the quad. The first two days of this program have been extremely fun. I am confident that they will continue to be that way.

After I got back to the quad, I did my homework in my room. The homework is surveys online. They are not quantitative, but qualitative. The goal is to assess how well you are thinking scientifically. I then had dinner. It was a great day.