Tag: Science

Land Yacht

Hello readers,

For this term we are doing physics, we are being graded on our final experiment of the term which is our Land Yachts, this is our final assessment for science, which are worth grades, enjoy as I talk you through this experiment.

Aim:

  • A fast land yacht that can travel the furthest in a short amount of time.
  • A fascinating design ready to attract human eyes.

Research: 

Here is an idea we considered doing.

 

Equipment:

  • Plastic bag (I used a plastic apron)
  • Scissor
  • Clear tape
  • Wooden base
  • 2x Bamboo sticks
  • Cardboard box
  • Pens
  • Colored paper
  • Leaf blower (class use)

Hypothesis: 

My group has done the research, with having all the resources and knowledge about physics, I’m sure our plan will exceed.

Method:

Instruction:

  1. Gather your equipment.
  2. On your wood base, there should be a small hole on the smaller piece of wood mounted onto the wood base, put a bamboo stick into that hole.
  3. Get a smaller bamboo stick and stick it on the one you recently just put in the hole, it should make a cross.
  4. Get your plastic apron, cut the parts where laces are tied. Making it a square.
  5. Fold the plastic bag until it makes a triangle.
  6. Attach it onto the wooden stick.

Results and discussion:

Experiment: Unfortunately our plan failed, we became one of the last people to top in our class.

Calculations: 

Distance travelled (m) Time taken (s) Speed calculation (ms-1)
                      3m                  21.50                      7.16ms-1

How can I calculate distance, time and velocity? 

You can use a formula triangle for science, but by viewing this post I will simply explain it to you. Take notes!

To calculate speed (velocity) = distance divided by time.

To calculate time = divide the distance by speed.

To get the distance = multiply the speed by time.

The distance we managed to take in was only 3 meters in a span of 21.50 seconds, it was an epic fail due to the small distance in a really long amount of time. This was the exact opposite of what our goal was, we were meant to get the longest distance with a short amount of time.

What happened during the experiment?

During the experiment, it was going terribly slow, we were really disappointed because this didn’t take part in our expectations. The leaf blower was already on high speed and the person holding the leaf blower walked closer as it sailed further. But our Land Yacht suddenly stopped moving, and there it was already the end of the experiment.

Why is a big sail significant to this experiment?

You may be wondering, why a big sail is important to this experiment, this is what helps optimize the yachts performance. Which means it will only provide more speed to a point. A larger sail can make our land yacht go faster because it catches more wind, which generates more force that makes the land yacht go forward. When you increase the size of a sail, you are also increasing surface area which helps it capture more wind energy. This converts it to a forward momentum.

But also take notes, that simply adding a big sail onto your land yacht won’t exactly just increase its speed, measurements are very important to take notes on.

What kind of forces applied to your land yacht? 

Lift, drag and propulsion are the 3 main forces that act on a land yacht. But the one acting out the most is propulsion. Propulsion means to go “forward” the only reason our yacht propelled forward, was because of our sail and the leaf blower blowing on it.

Were the net forces balanced or balanced?

The net force acting out on our land yacht is definitely unbalanced, our wood base was much larger than our sail itself. We used a leaf blower to propel it forwards, it was not being dragged backwards of any sort.

What exactly are net forces? 

“Net force” is the sum of all forces that are acting on an object, we can measure this by using newtons, newtons is the unit of measurement used for net forces. Net force is important because it shows how much force there are acting on an object.

For this experiment, if you are wondering if wind is a net force, no it is not. Pressure gradient force, friction force and Coriolis force are the causes of the generation of the wind. Wind has kinetic energy and can apply force to objects.

For better understanding about forces, you can take a look at this link and read the kind of things it has to tell you about it.

The Forces of the Wind

Conclusions:

Is there anything that you think you might’ve needed to do to execute this plan? 

I noticed that most groups have created a much bigger sail compared to ours, with that their sail managed to take them further in direction, comparing my groups sail to others, ours was much smaller. We thought that our sail was already big enough but turns out it wasn’t enough to be blown further.

A comment I have for this is I honestly regret not sticking to our research plan, I feel like we could have executed this plan if we were to follow what was on the video.

Another thing is measurements, you don’t just put something out there for an experiment if it’s something you are not sure about, just like our groups presentation, we had thought that our sail was big enough until it was experiment day we saw the other groups presentation and the key difference I saw was the change of size on our sails.

Presentation: It was by far the least designed one in our class, there was no color or creativity going on. Compared to our class I would actually hear some of them fight over whose design was the best. Our group lacked the most effort especially with the design. We were super focused on our sail because it was the most important one in the experiment, after all it was the only missing one for this experiment to work out.

 

 

 

DNA Extraction

Hello readers,

Aim:

For term 1 biology we are looking at DNA. For today’s experiment we will be extracting DNA from a banana. We do this experiment to mainly investigate how it looks and feels. A fact about this is that this information can be used to improve crops so that they are more resistant to diseases.

Equipment used:

  • Peeled banana
  • Salt
  • Dish soap
  • Ethanol
  • Test tube
  • 250mL Beaker
  • Metal spatula

Method:

  1. Mush some peeled bananas in a zip-lock bag with a splash of water and a small teaspoon of salt.
  2. Get the biggest beaker you have in your tray and strain the sample through a cloth into your beaker.
  3. Add a squirt of dish washing liquid into your sample.
  4. Pour your sample into a test tube.
  5. Place the test tube into a beaker filled with warm water.
  6. Let your sample warm up for 10 minutes.
  7. Slowly pour 5mL of ethanol down the inside of your test tube.

DNA Extraction is used for:

  • Finding genetic causes of diseases
  • Development of diagnostic tools (finding out what’s wrong with people)
  • Development of drugs/treatments
  • Also essential for, forensic science, sequencing genomes, detecting bacteria and viruses in the environment, and determining paternity.

How we can extract DNA from fruits:

As you can see from my method I will be explaining WHY we do this.

Firstly we put salt into our mashed fruit in order to separate the cells, this also breaks down the cells walls. Then we sieve our sample to extract our fruit soup, that soup will contain all (your fruit of choice) cells with the DNA inside the nucleus. To break apart the membranes surrounding the cell and the nucleus and release the DNA, we add our dish detergent such as washing up liquid to the soup, this will help rupture the cell membranes. Adding a pinch of protease enzyme will help break down the proteins the DNA is wound tightly around. The DNA will then uncoil and will now be present in the mixture as long strings, you can use pineapple juice, contact solution, cleaner or a pinch of meat tenderizer. All those products contain protease enzymes. You won’t be able to see the DNA just yet because it is dissolved in the mixture, to see the DNA you have to make it insoluble, to do this you use cold ethanol. The cold ethanol will slow down the actions present in the cell. You then dip your popsicle stick into the mixture and you will see a cloudy string wrapped around your popsicle stick. That is the DNA you have extracted from your fruit.

Result:

I know my group and I did something wrong with the experiment, maybe we added something that’s extra. But when we put the popsicle stick into our sample, we couldn’t extract DNA from the fruit soup, the long strings that were supposed to twist around our stick wasn’t there. But for the rest it worked perfectly fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Egg Parachute

Hello readers,

Aim:

I want to find out how gravity affects an egg.

Research:

Method

Equipment:

  • Scissors
  • String
  • Plastic Cup
  • Plastic bag
  • Egg

Instructions:

  1. Lay the plastic bag out flat and cut out a big square.
  2. Make 4 holes in each corner.
  3. Thread a 20cm long string in each hole and tie a knot.
  4. Get a plastic cup, and make 4 holes evenly.
  5. At the end of the strings, attach it onto the cups by tying a knot.

Hypothesis:

I feel as if the egg would break, mainly because the support it was sitting in wasn’t enough. We are going to drop it off a balcony let’s say about 10ft? I knew the bag would not slow the parachute down (we already did this experiment in year 8) It really isn’t no help.

Results:

Sadly none of us took any pictures.

My prediction for the experiment was wrong, my group’s egg actually survived the 10ft fall.

Discussions:

What is gravitational potential energy?

A common example I have for this is 2 balloons, 1 balloon filled with air and the other one filled with gas. The gas inside the balloon will cause the balloon to float, but when a balloon is filled with air it stays on the ground. The balloon floating is the one that has greater gravitational potential energy than the balloon that is on the ground.

What is air resistance?

Air resitance in simple words is a force that is caused due to air when an object passes through it.

 

 

 

Eye Dissection

Aim:

For this week’s science, I would like to experiment by dissecting a cow’s eye.

Investigation:

Hypothesis:

As I am a beginner in this experiment, my prediction is that the eye will explode due to me cutting the eyeball incorrectly. Explotion will occur as the eyeball is under pressure. Liquid or fatty-textured slime called Vitreous will come out if this process is done incorrectly.

Method:

Equipment:

  • Eye
  • Tray
  • Safety glasses
  • Scalpel
  • Scissors
  • Gloves

Instructions:

  1. For the first step you want to put on some gloves and safety glasses.
  2. You then want to get the excessive fatty that surrounds the eyes.
  3. Carefully cut between the cornea and the sclera. Make sure you do this step cautiously as everything in the eye is under pressure and may explode.
  4. Take out the eye lens, which sits behind the cornea.
  5. Split the eyeball in half.
  6.  On the inside of the eye, you will notice a light film sitting in the inside, it is called the retina. You then want to carefully take that out.
  7. On the otherside, on the opposite side of the optic nerve you will see the blindspot. Observe what it’s like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hot Air balloons

Aim:

For this weeks experiment, I want to find out if I could build my own mini hot air balloon.

Investigation:

 

Method

Equipment:

  • Plastic
  • Tape
  • Hotglue
  • Scissors
  • Bundle of straws
  • Fuel

Instruction:

  1. Gather your equipment
  2. To make your structural support, you’re going to need to attach your straws together. for you to not need anything to attach them together, cut a split at both the ends of your straws and connect them together like this: (make sure your structural support is only 40cm each)

3. Repeat the step 1 more time.

4. Put the sticks into the form of an ‘X’

5. In the middle of the ‘X’ hotglue a tealight containered candle.

6. Attach your structural support to your plastic bag.

7. Do your experiment.

Results:

We didn’t get to test my group’s experiment out, but by observing the others, it was a huge fail for them. The plastic ended up melting due to the strong heat. I’m strongly sure that this is because of the cotton and fuel we used instead of candles that created weaker flame.

 

 

 

 

Light behavior

Aim:

Hello readers today I would like to experiment with how light energy behaves.

Research:

Here are two examples to give you an idea of what we are doing

Method:

Equipment

  •  Light box
  • Power Pack

Instructions:

  1. Get your equipment gathered.
  2. Plug in your power pack but make sure your plug switch is off.
  3. Plug the wires onto the black and red terminals.
  4. Turn on your power pack by adjusting it on 2V (volts).
  5. You can then now turn up the voltage.
  6. Take a single slit and put it at the end away from the lightbulb.
  7. Follow instructions on reflection and refraction videos.

Results:

(Photos)

Discussion:

Why does my face reflect upside down on the inner part of the spoon?

The inner part of your spoon will act as your concave mirror, the light rays then travel on the top of your spoon and reflect downwards.

What is concave and convex?

A convex is when the surface or outline is curved outwards, meanwhile a concave is the one that curves inwards.

What is reflection?

It is the return of light or sound waves bouncing off a surface. A mirror is the most common thing capable of this.

What is refraction?

Refraction is when the light bends. It is the change of direction of a wave passing from one medium to another. It is also possible for sound, water and other waves to do this. This ‘bending refraction’ makes it possible for us to have, magnifying glasses, lenses, prisms and rainbows. 

What is a medium?

It is a substance through which a wave can propagate; which means to move, or transmit in the form of a wave.

How do we get colors?

Let’s start off with light, light is made of wavelengths and each wave is a particular color.

A fact about color, is it really isn’t a part of our real world. It is just an illusion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nuclear Energy

Aim:

For our next experiment for the term, I want to find out how to make grape plasma. It isn’t exactly a nuclear experiment, but it’ll do as we can’t do anything nuclear based in our science room.

Research:

Method:

Equipment

  • Microwave
  • Any  type of grapes
  • Glass cup
  • Safety glasses

Instructions:

  1. Get all your equipment gathered
  2. Be safe; use your safety glasses and definitely no metal in there, common sense but just a friendly reminder.
  3. Cut the grapes from top to bottom, but not all the way. Leave a thin strip of the grape skin. When you open it in half it shouldn’t be fully split, there should be a thin strip holding them.
  4. Put the grape in the microwave.
  5. Put the cup on top of the microwave.
  6. Put the microwave on high.
  7. It should go on for 1 minute.

Results:

Sadly I wasn’t able to do this experiment, I had another subject going on.

Discussion:

 

Investigating state changes

Aim:

Our aim for this science experiment was to melt ice which we oppose ‘Dry Ice’ This experiment was also a part of our Education Perfect learning as well, because we will start to focus our learning on what we have been learning about.

Research:

Method:

Equipment:

  • Beaker
  • Bunsen burner
  • Matches
  • Ice
  • Salt (optional)
  • Gause mat
  • Heat mat
  • Tripod
  • Thermometer
  • Retort Stand
  • Clamp
  • Timer or stopwatch
  • Safety glasses

Instructions:

  1. Get equipment ready and be safe.
  2. Set up the Bunsen burner, but do not light it.
  3. Fill half of your beaker with ice and add a 50mL of water.
  4. Set up the stand, clamp and thermometer.
  5. Make sure the thermometer is not touching the bottom of the beaker.
  6. Measure the temperature of the ice.
  7. Light the Bunsen burner and heat the ice with a blue flame.
  8. Start timing.
  9. Every 30 seconds, record the temperature of the ice/water.
Results:
Discussion:
What happened?
The ice that was put in the beaker turned into a liquid due to temperature changes. The state changed because we heated the ice and it had higher energy compared to the ice where it had lower energy.
Water can melt at the same temperature it freezes, but at room temperature it will slowly reach it’s liquid state.
The 3 states of matter and their transitions.
There are 3 states of matter, solid, liquid and gas.
When the water particles are frozen, they vibrate slowly and have many bonds meaning this is solid. But as you slowly heat the frozen particles up it would vibrate more and the bonds will move over each other, this is reaching their liquid state, but when you heat the liquid more, it turns into gas which means their bonds are broken and they can move freely.

Water Filtration

Aim:

For this term’s science, we will be doing chemistry. Our first experiment we will be starting this term is water filtration. We will be making water filters and drinking the “clean” water we’ve filtered the dirt out.

Research:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Big9Ut6Mc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrnt9QswVZ8

These two videos show 2 examples of ways you can make a water filter, I looked at the most simple ones I can find. And the equipment required that I can provide for myself.

Equipment:

  • Plastic Bottle
  • Handful of cotton
  • Gravel/Pebble
  • Rocks
  • Sand
  • Charcoal
  • Scissor
  • “Dirty Water”

Instruction:

  1. Cut your empty bottle in half.
  2. Place the top half of the bottle upside down onto the other half.
  3. Place a handful of cotton inside the bottle and push it down.
  4. Pour a handful of sand into the bottle, making it the second layer on top of the cotton.
  5. On the third layer put a handful of charcoal on top of the sand.
  6. Even the amount of gravel and pebbles just like the other equipment, making it the last layer.
  7. Pour the dirty water onto the filter, the water should come out clear at the tip of the bottle.

Results:

I do have a picture, however I’m not able to insert it through my post. I don’t know why and what’s causing my device to act like this.

Although the water filter paper was able to take out the big pieces of dirty sediments, it doesn’t fully clear out the water. It does clear out the water by 99% though.

Discussion:

What is the purpose of the rocks and pebbles? The purpose of them is to take out bigger sediments out of the water.

How do water filter papers work?

Filter papers have small pores, and this allows the small liquid molecules to pass through. This doesn’t allow the large solid particles to get in.

Why is it necessary we have clean water?

It is essential that humans drink clean water, because when we drink contaminated water and poor sanitation it leads to different types of diseases. Most of these diseases can cause immense pain and could possibly lead to death.

Is it safe to drink filtered water?

Yes it is safe, if you were to use a method like we did. Where it takes out the larger sediments and clears the water. It didn’t give me any sort of side effects. But if you didn’t know, the bacteria living in the water hasn’t fully broken down, and this bacteria called Giardia, can make you poop just water.

What is filtering? What are we separating?

Watering filtering is when we separate a solid from a liquid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chromatography

Aim:

I want to find out how to separate colored chemicals from ink.

Research:

 

 

Method:

Equipment:

  • Safety Glasses
  • 250mL Beaker
  • Water
  • Pencil
  • Filter paper
  • Marker/felt pen
  • Scissors

Instructions:

  1. Get your equipment ready and be safe.
  2. Add 1cm of water into the beaker.
  3. Cut a strip of filer paper.
  4. Draw a pencil line 2cm above the bottom.
  5. Place a colored dot using the marker pen in the middle of the pencil line.
  6. Fold down the top of the filter paper so that it hooks over the edge of the beaker.
  7. Put the filter paper into the water but don’t let the pencil line touch the water.
  8. When the water goes up the paper take it out and let it dry.

Results:

Where does the word chromatography come from? and what is it? It comes from the two words, ‘chroma’ from a Greek word meaning ‘color’ combined with the word ‘graphy’ meaning writing or recording. What is chromatography? Chromatography is when the pen inks on filter paper and the water brings the pen ink up the liquid through the filter paper.

How did the colors separate?

The reason why the colors may separate, it usually has something to do with the chemicals that make up the color, the water and the paper. The chemical that makes up the color is called ‘pigment’ some pigments, stick onto water better than paper. So this is why, it separates the colors.