Category Archives: Scimatics

Pages, Reflections, Scimatics

Time is Money post

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Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog. Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve completed in Scimatics 9. This project is called “time is money”, and is all about conducting a buiseness and predicting your earnings over time using linear equations. The driving question in this project is: “How can we predict our finances for the future?”. We can do this by using linear graphs and equations. Also, by identifying the determining factors of your buiseness, such as wage, expenses, and startup costs. 

To begin the project, we had to choose our buiseness. In Showbie, we commented our top 3 choices, mine were selling prawns, collecting bottles, and power washing. In the end, I chose power washing as my buiseness. 

We then had to determine our expenses, wages, and startup costs for our buiseness. We organized this in a numbers spreadsheet. 

Here’s my spreadsheet:

After creating the spreadsheet, we took the data and put it in a equation. This equation would determine our initial profit from this buiseness. 

Here’s my equation:

In the equation, y= total earnings, x= time, and b= initial startup costs. Since I had such a big startup cost, my initial profit was -635.5$. However, I still didn’t know how long it would take me to break even. Or how much I would make in a typical work year. 

To determine those numbers, we took the results from the equation, and put them in a graph. 

Here’s what my graph looked like:

Using the graph, I determined that it would take me around 43 hours of work to break even. And that in a work year of around 1700 hours, I would make 25,000$. 

Now for the curricular competencies. 

Understanding and solving:

I accomplished this skill. During class time, i spent most of my time on task, however, there were some times where I was off task. Furthermore, I completed most of my assignments on time, except for the khan academy quizzes, as it took me awhile to understand the concepts. 

Communicating and representing:

I extended in this skill. My equations was accurate and descriptive. Also, my graphs we’re clear, and demonstrated profit over a year, and how many hours it would take to break even. Furthermore, these were clearly demonstrated and explained in my video. 

Connecting and reflecting:

I extended this skill. In my video, I compared my buiseness to a career at McDonald’s, and how much you would make over a year. I also clearly explained how my buiseness affects the environment. My business uses gas, so I predicted that my buiseness negatively affects the environment over time. 

Now for the final product, the video. 

In the video, we had to explain our buiseness, whether it would be successful, and how it affects the environment. I created mine in iMovie, and added voiceover underneath the images I was showing. 

To summarize, I had lots of fun in this project, as it was cool to simulate y own buiseness. However, my buiseness didn’t turn out to be that good, cause I only made 25,000$ a year. In contrast, a job at a grocery store would pay much more. Furthermore, I was really proud of my final video, I thought it explained my buiseness really well. 

Thanks for reading this post! 

Individual Project, Pages, Reflections, Scimatics

MITOSIS VS. MEIOSIS

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Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog. Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve completed in Scimatics 9. This project was called, “Meiosis models”, and was about meiosis and mitosis, and how they are similar and different. To shoo our understanding we made models, conducted experiments, and created a narrated video to show our understanding. The driving question in this project was: “How is the reproduction of cells essential to the survival of organisms?” It’s essential because if the species ceases to reproduce, the species becomes very weak and more vulnerable to extinction.

To start of this project, we created a “project start mind map”. In this map, we added our thoughts, questions, and examples.

Here’s what mine looked like:

My understanding was pretty low at the beginning, so I had a lot of questions about this topic. 

Then, to begin to build our understanding, we did a workbook. These workbooks had info about meiosis, mitosis, and how they are used everyday. This workbook helped me lots in understanding the project as a whole.

Then to test our knowledge, we did a Khan Academy quiz. It seemed that there was a lot of new content in the tests, so it took me awhile to get a good score. In the end, I got a solid 8/9.

The next step was completing our Meiosis and Mitosis models.

In this milestone, we used “tinkercad”, a design software, to create these 3D models. 

Here’s my models:

Now to go over the competencies of this project:

The competencies were: Questioning and Predicting, Planning and Conducting, and Scientific Communication.

 

Questioning and Predicting:

I demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of this competency. I used my class time well, finished assignments early, but most of all, created really good work. There wasn’t really a tie where I was off task, but next time when I have nothing to do, I could look forward to other assignments/projects.

Planning and Conducting:

I demonstrated an extending level in this competency. At first, I didn’t understand the experiment all that well, and I made many mistakes. But, I asked others for help and eventually understood the procedure. I didn’t get the greatest of microscope results, but we later did another experiment, and I got much better results. As my first microscope experience, I think it went well, and I learned a lot.

Scientific Communication:  

I demonstrated a solid, sophisticated understanding in this competency. My video effective showed my understanding, I used good vocabulary, and effective transitions. I also used my models to explain both Meiosis and Mitosis well. My voiceovers were concise, and were synced well. 

The final step of this project was the Final narrated video. In this video, we combined our knowledge of the processes, our models, and our experiment photos to demonstrate mitosis and meiosis. I created my video in iMovie, a software that I’m pretty familiar with. 

Here’s my final video:

I’m pretty proud of my video, even though I didn’t do some things that well. For example, my final models could’ve been more detailed, and I mispronounced some words in my voiceovers.

To summarize, I learned lots about reproduction in this project. At first, I had no idea what mitosis or meiosis were, I couldn’t even pronounce them. I learned how to use a microscope, use tinkercad, and used iMovie more in this project. The toughest part of this project had to be the Khan academy test, as it really tested my knowledge. There was alot of new content, so it took me a while to understand. My favorite part of this project was making my narrated video. I always find video making a fun thing, so I put a good amount of effort into my video. 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Group Project, Reflections, Scimatics

Metaphor Machines

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Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog. 

Today’s post is about the recent project that we’ve completed in Scimatics 9. 

This project is called “Metaphor Machines”, and was all about circuits and the scientific method. This was a group project, my partners were: https://www.blog44.ca/coltonw/, https://www.blog44.ca/theryns/, https://www.blog44.ca/caleg/.

The curricular competencies in this project were Questioning and Predicting, Reasoning and Analyzing, Planning and conducting, and Scientific communication. 

Questioning and Predicting: 

In this project, I think I used my class time to my advantage. I was always on track with assignments, and asked questions if I didn’t understand. However, there were times where myself and my group partners were off task. For example, we got sidetracked with something else, or we weren’t that keen on getting much done. In the end, I accomplished this skill.

Reasoning and Analyzing:

Both my individual and group blueprints were detailed and specific. However, in the final blueprint we could’ve done a better job in measuring different parts of the machine. In my individual blueprint, I thought my ideas were pretty good, but we only included a few of my ideas in the final machine. I accomplished this skill.

Here’s a picture of my individual blueprint:  

 

And here’s my final group blueprint:

 

Planning and Conducting:

We built some pretty creative circuits in our machine. For example, we built an eye shaped circuit, a question mark shaped circuit. Furthermore, we had some cool switches. We had one made of tin foil, and one that triggered by magnets connecting. As for our circuit diagram, it took me awhile to figure out the math. To figure it out I asked a fellow student, who told me to use the “PHET simulator”. I then found the current of my circuit and completed the diagram. 

I accomplished this skill.

Scientific Communication:

I was in charge of editing the video and handing it in. The voiceovers were clear and concise, however I should’ve explained the scientific process better in my voiceovers. Also, could’ve made it a bit longer and I should’ve got more camera angles for my video. The voiceovers could’ve been synchronized with video better as well. I accomplished this skill.

In summation, this project was difficult and I learned lots about circuits, and the scientific method. I liked that it was a group project, and that we had many options as to how our machine was designed. This project included graphic design, wiring, and video creation. 

Thanks for reading!!

Individual Project, Reflections, Scimatics, Stories

Chemistry Stories Post

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Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog. 

Today’s post is about a project I’ve been doing in Scimatics 9, called “Chemistry Stories”.

This project was all about chemistry, and creating an animated video about covalent and ionic bonds.

The driving question in this project was; “How do the electron arrangement of atoms determine the chemical and physical properties of elements and compounds”?

My answer to that is: that the electron arrangement affects whether the atom has a full valence shell or not. The electron arrangement also affects the overall charge of an atom.

To demonstrate my learning in this project, I’ll be highlighting the milestones/stepping stones that helped me answer the driving question best.

The first piece evidence that I’m going to highlight is the “project start mind map”. In this mind map we organized our thoughts and asked questions. We then later answered these questions.

The second piece of evidence that I’ll be highlighting is the textbook and workbook pages. Reading these workbook pages taught me about key chemistry concepts. Learning about these concepts was really important because they were a key part in creating the animated video.

 

The third piece of evidence I’ll be highlighting is the Animation Storyboard. In this storyboard, we layed out what was going into the final animation. 

Here’s what my storyboard looked like:

 

 

This storyboard helped a lot because it was an opportunity for me to receive feedback, and to see what I needed to work on. Mr. Gross noted that in covalent bonding, I needed to elaborate more on the sharing process.

 

The next piece of evidence I’ll be highlighting is Milestone 5, the final animation. To create this animation we used keynote. The goal of this animation was to explain covalent bonding and ionic bonding. A covalent bond is when two non-metals share electrons. An ionic bond occurs when one non-metal, and one metal exchange electrons. *The link to my animation is attached at the top of the post.

 

The curricular competencies in this project were: Communicating, Processing and Analyzing, and Questioning and Predicting.

Communicating: Formulate physical or mental theoretical models to describe a phenomenon.

I think I accomplished this skill. My animation had clear voiceovers that explained the bonding processes well. Also, my video had good music and Mr. Gross thought it really enhanced the animation. At the start of this project, I had a preliminary knowledge on keynote animation. However, I learned by watching tutorials and by asking others.

Processing and Analyzing: Construct, Analyze and interpret models and/or diagrams.

I think I accomplished this skill. I explained the ionic bonding process really well, and the animation clarified that process. However, I didn’t do as well on the covalent bonding. I didn’t clarify the sharing in covalent bonding. But, my animation was smooth and showed how the electrons were transferred from each atom. 

Questioning and Predicting: Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest.  

I accomplished this skill. I used my class time well, and I was always on track during the project. At the start of the project I wasn’t all that interested in learning about chemistry. But now that I know the concepts it doesn’t seem that bad.

To summarize, I’m really proud of how I did in this project. At the beginning of the project, I had barely any knowledge about chemistry. However, I now know a lot more. I enjoyed creating the animation, but I think I could’ve enhanced its story a bit better. I think I was too worried about the concepts, that I forgot about creating a good story.

Group Project, Pages, Reflections, Scimatics

Correlation vs. Causation Post

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Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog!

Today I’ll be writing about a project called “Correlation vs. Causation”. This project revolved around surveys and survey audiences. My partner in this project was Theryn, go check out his blog here: http://www.blog44.ca/theryns/

The driving question in this project was: “What’s the difference between Correlation and Causation?”. The difference is that Correlation means the there is a relation between factor A and B. Causation means that factor A causes B or vice versa. 

To show evidence of my learning, I will be highlighting the milestones/stepping stones that helped me most in understanding the driving question. 

The first stepping stone to mention is our textbook work. During this project, we went over several textbooks. These textbooks included information about different samples of populations, as well as different types of surveys that you can make. This helped me a lot because for our surveys,we had to target a specific audience. 

The next piece of learning that I am highlighting is our survey. In our survey, we were trying to correlate the number of friends one has with how many nicknames one had, this set of questions was also our example of causation. Also, we were trying to correlate how tall one is with how often one thinks about height. Unfortunately, our results didn’t turn out the way we wanted them to. Even though we received 40 answers, we found no correlation whatsoever. Our solution was to pull correlations from our other results. Nevertheless, we met all expectations in this project.

Here’s our final graphs;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for the curricular competencies. 

Planning and Conducting: Select and use appropriate equipment, including digital technologies , to systematically and accurately collect and record data. 

I think I accomplished this skill. We posted our survey on Basecamp, as well as social media platforms. Even though our data wasn’t the best, we were still able to find 2 correlations and 1 causation. We showed this growth by presenting our project to the class and by explaining how we overcame different challenges. 

Communicating and Representing: Use mathematical vocabulary and language to contribute to mathematical discussions.

I think we did well in this skill. We used the resources available to make good graphs that fully explain our findings. We used the app Numbers to track and organize our data.  We learned to show that growth by including our graphs in our final presentation.

Applying and Innoavating: Contribute to care for self, others, community, and world through individual or collaborative approaches. 

At first, I didn’t understand survey ethics at all. Using the textbook, and information from others, I was able to understand more thoroughly. In the end, I had an accomplished understanding of this skill. 

 

In summation, this project taught me how to properly conduct surveys. Specifically, I learned to be ethical, and it taught me the difference between correlation and causation. Looking back, I would’ve made significant changes to my survey. For example, I would’ve altered my questions that resounded more with the audience. Also, I would’ve created more questions so that more correlations are possible. 

Thanks for reading!

Group Project, Pages, Reflections, Scimatics

Game of Exponent laws Post

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Hello readers! 

Welcome to my first blog post of grade 9!

 

 

 

Today’s post will be about a project I’ve just completed, “Game of exponent laws”. 

This project was based around exponential laws and the main goal of the project was to make a game that featured these exponent laws. 

This was a partner project, my partner was: https://www.blog44.ca/nolanf/.

 

The driving question in this project was: “How does math make games more complex, interesting, and re-playable? 

Math makes games more enjoyable by adding probability, meaning anyone can win. If games were one-sided, these games would be less popular. Furthermore, math adds that sense of strategy, for example in our game there were many different ways to take advantage of your opponent based on the cards you had.

The work that I felt best helped me in answering the driving question was our math workbook, as well as math YouTube videos explaining exponents. There were times in this project where I was really stuck and confused. However, I feel that I have learned lots since the start of the project about exponents, even though I still don’t have a complete understanding.

Another activity that helped me answer the driving question was the Game rules. Throughout this project, we created multiple drafts of these game rules. They helped because we were able to brainstorm/organize all of our ideas on these game rules.

Every project in PLP includes the “Cirricular Competencies”. These competencies help guide the project and display what the expected outcomes are. 

In this project we had 3 competencies, Reasoning and Analyzing, Communicating and Respresenting, and Applying and Innoavating.

 

 

Reasoning and Analyzing: Use logic and patterns to solve puzzles and play games.

I started in this competency with little knowledge about how to make a working game.

In the past I have made games, but they didn’t include much complex math like this project did. By doing the project, I grew this skill tremendously by trying things out, and getting feedback from others. In the end, I extended this particular skill.

Communicating and Representing: Represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms.

I started in this competency with not much knowledge because I didn’t  understand the mathematical ideas of this project quite yet. Like I mentioned before, understanding exponents was pretty tough for me, and it took a lot of work in-school, and out-of-school. However, I began to understand more thoroughly, and that showed in how our game looked, and which exponent laws it had.

Applying and Innoavating: Contribute to care for self, others, community, and world through individual or collaborative approaches.

I started in this competency as a a good group worker. However, I felt at times where the work was unbalanced because we were lacking communication. Nevertheless, we worked well without issue and that resulted in a good game.

 

To summarize, I really enjoyed the whole board game part of this project. Even though I struggled for a bit with understanding exponents, I feel as that I have learned lots. I also thought making the actual board was fun because I got to add cool medieval drawings, (even though it made it look like Clash Royale). In all, I hope the next project we do is even better than this one!

Thanks for reading!

Individual Project, Reflections, Scimatics

Comic Cells Final Post

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Comic Book

Hi everyone, and welcome back to my blog!

Today’s blog will be about a recent project I have completed in PLP Scimatics 8. 

This project is called “Comic Cells”, and the goal of this project was to create a comic where you demonstrate the interaction of cells with diseases. To create this comic, we used the app “Comic Life 3”.

The driving question in this project is: “How do cells and diseases interact?”. My answer to that is that they interact by trying to overpower one another and eliminating one another.

To demonstrate my learning, I will be highlighting the milestones/stepping stones that helped me answer the driving question best.

 

 

The first thing I will talk about is the Launch Entry Event, where we watched the movie “Osmosis Jones”. Osmosis Jones is about a white blood cell who’s mission is to stop an invading virus. I found this movie to be pretty funny since Bill Murray was the lead actor.

Watching this movie also helped in giving me a preliminary understanding of what cells are and what they do. It also gave me some ideas for what to include in my comic book.

 

The next thing I will talk about is milestone 2. Milestone 2 was our Disease Wanted poster. The overall goal of this milestone was to chose the virus we were going to include in our comic book, as well as include facts about our chosen virus. This helped with answering the driving question because it gave me an opportunity to get a better understanding of not just how my chosen disease works, but how other diseases work as well.

The disease I chose for my comic book was Marburg Virus. Marburg Virus is similar to the Ebola virus, and it originates from humans and bats.

Here’s my Poster:

 

 

 

The next Milestone I will highlight is milestone 4. Milestone 4 was our Comic book “Storyboard”. In this milestone we were just laying out the building blocks for our final comic. 

This helped me in my learning by giving me a chance to show what I know about cells and see what needed work. 

Here’s my Milestone 4 Storyboard.

 

 

To further demonstrate my learning, I will go over the Cirricular competencies and show what I did well, and what I could improve next time. 

The competencies in this project were Questioning and Predicting, Scientific Communication, and Evaluating. 

Questioning and Predicting: Demonstrate a sustained curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest. 

I think I accomplished this competency well and used my class time to my advantage. I feel like during the last couple of days we had to finish our comic I was really locked in and focused . I learned that its always better to finish things as early as possible then at the last second.

Scientific Communication: Communicate ideas, findings, and solutions to problems using scientific language, representations, and digital technologies. 

I think that I gained a complete understanding of cells from this project. I did that by completing milestones and reading about my disease and how it interacts with cells. I learned to show that growth by making a Comic book about cells and diseases.

Evaluating: Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of evidence.

Overall, I think my comic had logical outcomes incorporated into it. At first, when I was making the outline, the outcomes were a bit shaky. But, I improved in that aspect in my final comic book. 

 

In conclusion, I really enjoyed making my own comic book!

I also found learning about cells and diseases to be quite interesting. The hardest part of this project for me was coming up with my own original comic book. 

In all, I enjoyed the comic aspect of this project and I hope I get to make another sometime in the future!

 

Group Project, Pages, Reflections, Scimatics

Ultimate Design Challenge Post

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Hi everyone, welcome back to my blog. 

Today I’ll be writing about the recent project I have been working on in Scimatics 8.

This project is called the “Ultimate design challenge”, and is all about creating a model of an object that either maximizes volume or surface area.

The driving question in this project was; “How can we design an object to optimize its shape?”.

My answer to that is that you can design an object to optimize it’s shape by using design softwares and by using various math strategies.

This project was a group project, and my partner was Zach. Here’s a link to his blog: Zach’s Blog

 

 

To demonstrate my learning, I will be highlighting the milestones/stepping stones that helped me reach an answer to the driving question. 

The first milestone I will be highlighting is milestone 2. The goal of milestone 2 was to finish our Tinkercad model and also have completed formulas to calculate each shape of our design.

My partner and I chose to model after an Alienware gaming PC and a Steelseries Apex 3 gaming keyboard. (I created the keyboard and he made the PC.)

 I think that I really underestimated how hard making this model would be. For example, it was hard to move shapes around, set shapes at the right angles. And also, it was hard to keep my composure. However, the more I used the software, the more I understood it. 

The next step after completing the model was to get it 3D printed, unfortunately, my model wasn’t 3D printed.

 

Here’s the formulas I decided to use to calculate my objects☝️

 

The next milestone I will be highlighting is Milestone 5, which was our presentation to the class. 

In this presentation we demonstrated to the class what we did, why we chose to do it, and our final calculations. 

One thing that I was really proud of from our presentation is how we talked more about the process of doing everything than just taking about the calculations. 

If you want to look at our keynote deck, click this link: Ultimate Design Challenge Presentation

 

 

Every project we do in PLP is guided by the curricular competencies. To show my learning, I will describe what went well in each competency and what I could improve on.

The Cirricular competencies in this project were, Applying and Innoavating, Reasoning and Analyzing, and Communicating and Representing.

Applying and Innoavating: Contribute to care for self, others, community, and world through personal or collaborative approaches.

I think that at times during this project I was off task, however near the end I was really locked in and was focused on getting different tasks done. For example, in milestone 3, (which was our calculations of our models), I focused more on getting it done with quality and not with speed and it really paid off. 

Reasoning and Analyzing: Model mathematics in contextualized experiences.

When I first started modelling my object in Tinkercad, I had lots of trouble navigating the software. However the more I attempted to understand the different functions, the more used to the software I got. I learned to show this growth by completing and demonstrating my fully completed 3D model.

Communicating and representing: Explain and Justify mathematical ideas and decisions.

When I first started learning more about surface area and volume in the worksheets it was pretty difficult to understand. However, the more I did practice in the workbook, the easier calculations different objects got. I learned to show this growth by calculating the various shapes of my model in Milestone 3.

 

 

In summation, I found creating a 3D object in Tinkercad to be really cool! At the beginning of the project my understanding form technology was very minimal, and by using this software I think I expanded my knowledge. I also benefited from the extra math practice that this project had. In all, it was a fun project with many challenges.

Thanks for reading today’s blog!

Individual Project, Reflections, Scimatics

Chemistry Coding Post

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Hi everyone, and welcome back to my blog.

Today I’ll be writing about the project I have been doing in Scimatics 8.

This project was based around the “Kinetic Molecular Theory” and coding.

The kinetic molecular theory describes how atoms react differently to various states of matter. And how when changes of state occur, a change in particle motion happens as well.

Everything in PLP is guided by the “driving question”.

 The driving question to this project was “How can the behaviour of matter be explained by the kinetic molecular theory and the atomic theory?”

My answer to that is that it can be explained through different game inspirations and through various simulators.

The first step to this project was creating a “project start mind map”. This mind map included our “need to knows”, things that we already knew, and examples. At the time the only thing that I knew about atoms was that they are small. I was quite familiar with these mind maps since I had done a few of them in past projects. This mind map was Milestone 1 in the project.

Also, at the end of the project we answered any of our previous need to knows.

 

 Since the final product was a coded game, the next step was to start building up to that. One of the key pieces in the evaluation criteria was including historical models from different scientists. Before we could choose our models, we first had to build knowledge on these scientists theories and discoveries.

To do that we did some workbook practice. Later on in the project we also did a test on the theories and models. 

For my game, I chose to include models from Niels Bohr and Ernest Rutherford.

 

 

All projects in PLP are guided by the Curricular Competencies. To demonstrate my learning further, I’m going to list what I think I did well and what could be improved.

Questioning and Predicting: Demonstrate a sustained curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest.

I think that during the project there were times where I was not focused. However, near the end I was really putting in the extra effort to get things done and elaborate with all of my ideas.

Scientific Communication: Communicate ideas, findings, and solutions to problems using scientific language, representations, and digital technologies.

It took me some time to communicate ideas and put my game together, however, I think my ideas were solid and that’s what made my game cool. Personally, I really benefited from the workbook practice, as well as the test because it gave me the knowledge to create a cool game. I think that I really improved in this skill during this project. 

Reasoning and Analyzing: Use logic and patterns (including coding) to solve puzzles and play games.

At first, coding seemed impossible. Things were not working out the way I wanted and my knowledge on coding wasn’t there. The way that I improved was by exploring various resources and practicing coding and getting familiar with it. 

 

 

Now, the final product!

Unfortunately, the was a technical problem so I only have pictures to show you guys.

I will make sure to add the game link when the error is resolved!

For my game I chose to use Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen as my molecules. I soon realized that those 3 mixed together create soda pop so I chose that as my game idea! My first thought was a to create a game instead of a simulator because I wanted something that was fun for the user.

 

To summarize, I found learning about molecules and atoms to be really interesting. Furthermore , it was cool to code and create my own video game. The thing that I found most challenging in this project was coding at first, since I wasn’t very familiar with it. My favorite part of this project has to be finishing my final product and being proud of it!

Thanks for reading today’s blog!

Group Project, Individual Project, Reflections, Scimatics

Laser Laws Blog Post

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Our final project of Quarter 2 was called “Laser Laws”. This project was about the law of reflection as well as learning about the Pythagorean Theorem. Like most projects we do in Scimatics 8, this project included some individual work, however the final product was made in groups. My group members were: cooperk/, samuelk/, lucap/. 

The driving question in this project was; “How can we test the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection?” There are many ways to test both theorems, however we did so in milestone 4 by combining Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection into one experiment.

The law of reflection states that when a ray of light reflects off a surface, the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.

The Pythagorean theorem states that the sum of the squares on the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square on the hypotenuse (the side opposite of the right triangle). In other words, a+b=c.

 

Activities that helped me understand the driving question:

 Like most scimatics projects I’ve done, one of our first tasks was to create a “Project Start Mind Map” in the app “Mind Node”

Our task was to list all of the things we already knew as well as questions we had about the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection. The only thing I knew about light at first was the speed of light and didn’t know much else. Later in the project we went back to our “Mind Map” and tried to give an answer to each of the questions we had.

 

 

During this project we also did numerous experiments testing the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection. In milestone 3, we did an experiment testing only the law of reflection in our groups. We used a raybox, protractor, mirror, paper, and a pencil to conduct the test. Our method in this experiment was first to test the law normally, by projecting the laser from a certain angle to see if it reflects at the same angle, and it did. Then to further test it, we moved the mirror slightly to see if that affected the angle that reflects, and we concluded that the law remains true no matter how you alter the different variables.

In milestone 5, we created a laser display with mirrors and a laser. We got to create a shape of our choice and accurately planned and measured it. This experiment was fun at the end because all of the groups put their displays out and we used a smoke machine so you could see the shape the lasers were creating.

Here’s our display:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cirricular Competencies:

Questioning and Predicting: Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest.

We demonstrated this by working hard on what we were assigned and by focusing in class. During the project I don’t think I was as focused as I should’ve been on the task at hand during times, However, I did a good job at getting work done in class and avoiding homework.

Communicating and Representing: Represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms.

We demonstrated this skill in milestone 4 by creating a right triangle with mirrors in the optics simulator. I first didn’t understand how to navigate through the optics simulator. I had thought we were testing the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection separately. I started to understand when I asked for help from a classmate and I started going in the right direction. 

Here’s what I created in the optics simulator: 

Applying and Innovating: Co-operatively design projects.

We demonstrated this by creating our laser display in milestone 5. I think that I personally contributed a good amount of effort into our display. However there were times where only 1 or 2 people in the group were actually contributing.

In conclusion, I learned a lot about light, how it reflects, and also about the Pythagorean theorem. I most enjoyed creating the laser display because seeing how cool it looked with the smoke machine was worth the work. However the hardest part of this project was exploring all of the different vocabulary words in the workbooks an being tested on our knowledge of them. In all, the best thing about this project was exploring scientific concepts as well as Mathematical concepts.