I don’t know how many times I’ve said at the start of my blog posts that I had a new favourite project,  but this is definitely one of those posts

-Me

When our class first introduced to the project I was very exited. We were shown super cool laser experiments that  also looked really complicated.  We were told that we would also be making a laser display using mirrors but not to the complexity of the examples that we saw. I’m sure everyone was hyped for this project because most of us haven’t created models out of lasers.

Milestone 1

In PLP we use milestones and stepping stones to help us learn. Stepping stones being little activity’s and milestones being big projects that we would get graded on. Our first milestone in Scimatics, a mind map.

A mind map was  a perfect way to  plan out what we already knew about the subject and what we want to solve or figure out.

It helps us organize our ideas and thoughts about the subject (in this case being light). We would eventually come back to this at the end of our project and reflect on what we did learn.

Milestone 2

Milestone 2 was nothing creative but it still was very important. We had a lot of little stepping stones in between milestones 1 and 2 like math worksheets on the Pythagorean theorem. This Milestone was just a test on what we knew about the Pythagorean theorem.

Milestone 3

Milestone 3 was a first glimpse at a laser display. Instead of lasers we used a small and not so powerful light. We used an adapter to thin the ray and deflect it off the mirror. The point of the exercise was  to test and show us the law Reflection. We measured the angle of reflection and the angle of incident with a protractor. After, we wrote a lab report on the assignment I don’t have an actual picture of the experiment but this is a picture of my lab report. I was really happy with this report because I put my best effort in and as a result, my teacher showed the entire class as a good example for a lab report.

 

Millstone 4

Millstone 4 was probably my least favourite part of this project. It was a laser display design experiment where we created a virtual laser display on a online simulator. We had to make a right angled triangle so in our lab report we could test the law of reflection and the pythagorean theorem. It seemed fun at first, but it got frustrating. The program didn’t run smoothly and if anything was off by a little tiny bit, the entire thing would become completely inaccurate. With this milestone as I stated above we had to create another lab report. I tried to make the lab report really good, but it turned out I that measured wrong and my entire experiment was inaccurate.  So I had to start scratch and tried to make it as accurate as possible. I got a good mark on it so It was worth it to start over.

 

Milestone 5

Milestone 5 was the final milestone of this project (other than the blog post which doesn’t really count in my opinion). Our table group had to work together to create a laser display to test the law of reflection that also had right angled triangle in it so we could also test the Pythagorean theorem. Our group didn’t know what to make at first, but in the end we settled on a square with a diagonal line connecting form corner to corner. It was tough trying to direct a laser beam from mirror to mirror that was impossible to see. On the end of the second day our group had successfully crafted a laser display. We had to mark where everything was because if we didn’t it would be like starting over again. Day after day, it wasn’t easy setting up our laser display over and over again, but on the final day we were able to set it up properly on the last day (no thanks to me accidentally knocking it all over).  Someone in the afternoon class brought a smoke machine so we actually see the beams. This is how ours turned out:

Needless to say, it didn’t really look like a square. But we learned and the process and procedure really taught me.

What I learned

This project went by so fast, probably because I enjoyed it so much. There was a lot of textbooks work but it was all for the best, because without it we wouldn’t of been able to create an amazing laser display. I learned about the Pythagorean theorem and how it helps find the unknown value of a triangle leg. I learned about waves and frequency’s and how they work and how they affect us. I learned about the law of reflection and without that we wouldn’t of been able to create a laser display and we wouldn’t of been able to predict where the lasers would hit. I learned a lot though out this project and it was really fun and enjoyable!

Curricular Competencies

Questioning and Predicting:                                                                                                   What this competency means is that I sustain an interest and curiosity toward the project, in other words stayed on topic and used my time efficiently and effectively. I think I deserve a good mark on this competency. I felt like I was proficient as I may have gotten sidetracked at times because of distractions but I felt that I always maintained interest towards the project or assignment at hand.

Communicating and Representing:                                                                                      This competency means that I recorded project r and wrote an accurate lab report on the assignment. I used the scientific method, Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection to accurately create a lab report and record accurate data. I thought that I wrote my lab reports to the best of my ability and they turned out great.

Applying and innovating                                                                                                                  All that this competency is about is the project itself. That it’s properly and accurately planned out whether it be planning, measuring, and labeled. It was also about the fair group work and the all group members contributed equally. I thought that I did good on this competency. After all, it is a group project and I cant take all the credit.