Plan for Week 5

This week I feel we should spend most of it on the circuit project. I know it is a little extensive to spend the whole week, but I feel we should get it done before Christmas break, and I could ask questions about things I don't know.

Day 1

In Class:

Work on floor plan started last class. 

At Home:

Continue floor plan.

Do blog post.

Day 2

In Class:

Start requirement #2:
Accurate circuit diagram with proper labels.  The design should be WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE, not necessarily what it actually is.  So if you think there are outlets missing from certain rooms or that there should be more switches or that the switches should be in different places, etc. then go ahead and design it that way.

At Home:

Continue requirement #2

Do blog post.

Day 3

In Class: Watch videos that may help (Can ask questions in class if anything is difficult to understand)

At Home:

Continue any work left unfinished during Day 1 and Day 2.

Do blog post.

Weekend

Meet up and take a quick look around the house, and finish the project if possible. Requirement #4 may have to be done next week. 

Do lesson plan for next week.

Week 4: Day 3

This Friday I started the project. I'm working with Viktoria, Moh, and Junhee.

 Design and describe/explain a circuit diagram to show how you would wire all of the lights and appliances (outlets) on one floor of your house.  This should include an investigation of how much power (wattage) each light and appliance uses to determine the total electrical load required.

We decided to use my house for the diagram, and we hope to meet up on a weekend to plan it out.

Requirements

1.     Accurate circuit diagram with proper labels.  The design should be WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE, not necessarily what it actually is.  So if you think there are outlets missing from certain rooms or that there should be more switches or that the switches should be in different places, etc. then go ahead and design it that way.

2.     Schematic drawing of floor plan showing the wiring, switches, appliances and lighting with appropriate labels (including power loads required for each appliance/light)

3.     A regularly updated project/unit journal

4.     A written description of your design including an explanation of the science, which influenced your work and a description of the electric power (wattage) required to run all of the lights and appliances in your diagram.

Today we started working on the drawing plans of the house. We did the upper floors, accounting for anything that may use electricity.  It took up most of the class. Viktoria and I planned most of it, dividing the workload between number one and two between each other and with Junhee. Moh will be helping, but most of his work will be for number 4.

We all will be doing our individual journals for number 3 on this blog.

At home I decided to go over the videos and lab reports (one last time) so I can get ready for the quiz.

Week 4: Day 2

Today I continued yesterday's line of work. I didn't get as much done as I hoped, since I wanted to start the project today. However, Google Docs seems to be having a problem and won't let me edit it, saying that something went wrong and I should reload it all the time.

However, I did get Lab #2 done- finally getting all three labs done. At home, I watched the videos again, as I forgot some parts I needed to add to the procedure.

There is nothing much to report. On Friday I will be starting the circuit project.

Week 4: Day 1

The investigation: Who said Pickle? is not quite ready yet. However, that is fine since we decided to finish everything else before starting magnetism.

We already finished Lab #1 last week, and last class I was able to go through Lab #3. Lab #3 seemed okay, but I added some things to the materials this class. Instead of using PhET simulation and computer, I added the number of wires and everything used, since I was told to treat this as a real experiment and not a simulation.

Lab #2 needed a bit more refining. My partners had already did some things concerning the overall design of the experiment, but I need to add the procedure and get screenshots. I started this today.

At home, I watched some more videos. I'm also planning to start the project on circuits soon.

Week 3: Day 3

Today is hopefully the last day of working on these three lab reports.

As I said in my last post for Day 2, today I wrote the conclusion for Electric Current Flow In Circuits Lab Report. Then I revised my other two lab reports. Both of the labs were pretty hard to design as well, but did not need as much guidance as the first lab report, which I redid three times.

There was nothing really new learnt today; I just went over the things I already knew and did extra research to verify it.

There's nothing much to report, but by next week Tuesday I will be starting on Investigation 1: Who said Pickle?

Edit: All posts for this week were to be posted on Sunday, but the internet connection was down.

Week 3: Day 2

Today I continued working on the re-do of my lab report. Since the last two attempts were a failure, I did this one slowly to make sure everything was in order.

With my group members, I typed up the procedure and used screenshots. Then I edited it again and again. The process was painstakingly slow, but it is necessary to be meticulous so we don't have to do it again.

In addition, designing our experiment was hard even with help. While we know the information, it is hard to put it all in words in a lab report. However, in the end, we did get the procedure done, and it seemed understandable. What we started learning last class and completely understood this class was the way the electric current flows in different types of circuits. Here is the summary:

In this series circuit, the electric current runs the same amount throughout the circuit. There are three lightbulbs 0.9 amps. It is divided by three, so there are 0.3 amps running throughout the circuit.

In this particular parallel circuit with three bulbs, when the electric current flows through the first bulb, the current decreases by 0.9 amps. After the current flows through the second bulb, it decreases by 0.9 amps.

At home I did extra research just to make sure that the lab report made sense- and it did. I did every part of the report, but I still need to go over the conclusion, which I will do next class.

Week 3: Day 1

Today class time was- to put simply- a waste.

While I was putting the finishing touches on my "Circuit Flow of Electricity" Lab Report and re-watching the video to make sure it was all correct, I realized that the lab question is wrong in the first place.

The question was: How does a circuit's current and voltage relate to one another?

However, it turned out that we needed to talk about either series or parallel circuits, or both. We just talked about the simple circuit in it. I thought that we could design the experiment the way we thought was fitting, but we forgot to include the circuit type. In my first draft of the report- the original question- included the circuit type, but however that particular lab was too hard to design and was scratched.

Also, for the materials it turns out that we needed to treat this as a real lab experiment, not a simulation. Therefore we needed to list the number of bulbs and other materials we use IN the simulation, not the simulation itself.

However, I believe this new question would work out well. While trying to understand the current, voltage, and resistance, I played around with the simulation until I got all the data.