Magnetic Car

 This science lesson we got to choose what type of experiment we had to do out of trying out some electronics, creating a lemon battery, making a battery powered car and the one my group did, the magnetic powered car. My group had me, Naiya, Liam and Lucas S. We had to do the hardest part out of the groups that had to do the magnetic car because we had to screw in all of the tiny, 3/4mm screws onto the bottom.

I observed that it was rather difficult once we got the car moving to make it go that far because the magnet we were using to push the car along kept on slipping to the side of the magnet that was attached to the car. The back wheels were also quite tight and reluctant to move.

Some advice for the next people to do this experiment is to make sure that the magnets are lined up perfectly behind each other so that they don't slip to the side of each other. I also think that it would have a better outcome if you made sure that the wheels weren't as tight as how we had them.

(It was a magnetic car not a battery one)

Cotton Ball Launcher

 During this science lesson we were learning about how different variables can change the thing you started out with originally. To test this we created a cotton ball launcher. To find out how to create one watch the video bellow. We put some tape down on the carpet then marked a line on the tape every thirty cm, we then lined up at the beginning of the tape and shot our launchers and saw how far we got along the tape. The highest I got was one hundred and twenty cm. The highest scored in the class was one hundred and fifty cm, which Carter and Ruby got.

I observed that a good way to make your cotton ball go further was to make the inside roll longer that the outside one. Another good thing to do was to put tape or a piece of paper across the part that you would put the cotton ball, that way the cotton didn't get stuck on the rough edges of the paper.

In future I think a good way to improve the result that I got would be to point the cotton ball launcher a bit higher instead of pointing it horizontally across the room. I think this would improve the experiment because the higher it gets the further it will have to fall and when something falls it doesn't fall straight down it sort of falls across. What other way do you think I could improve? 

Olympic Values Medals

This Blog post is about sharing my Olympic values medals that I designed. The three Olympic values are, excellence, respect and friendship. The medals were a create option for after we had finished our must do's. The other options for the creates were an animation that showed one of the values through sport or to make a poster about the three Olympic values. Once we had done one of these we could do a rap if we wished.

The main thing we were learning about in week one and two for inquiry was the Olympic values that I mentioned earlier in these stems. This Blog post is one of the two creates that I did. The gold medal represents excellence because if you are excellent you are the best you can be. The silver one shows respect because a good way to show that you respect someone is to shake hands with them after the match. Last but not least, my bronze medal is about friendship because you can show friendship by looking after and taking care of your friends.

During this activity I found easy to decide what I was going to put on each of my medals. For example, for excellence I chose an angle heart because if someone is referred to as an angle it means they are the best. That put together with a heart which often means kindness equals to the basic definition of excellence. 

Something that I found rather difficult to do during this time frame was to figure out how I was going to make the medal straps look like medal straps. First I did the coloured bit then went over it to make the gray triangle. If I didn't make the gray triangle the strap wouldn't have looked like an actual strap. 

In future I would like to improve my create by choosing a background that looks slightly more exciting. It would make it harder to improve the medal straps but I could work with it. What do you think I could have improved on with my medals? 

Egg Drop Experiment

We were learning about Inertia, part of Newton's first law of motion. This law basically means when an object is at rest it doesn't want to move and when the object is moving it does not want to stop. The equipment we used was: 1 cup, Water, A flat tray or plate, 1 egg and 1 cardboard toilet roll. 

What we did was fill the cup with water then place the plate on top, then balance the toilet roll on it's end on the plate. We then put the egg on the toilet roll length ways and tried to hit the plate out from under it so that the egg fell into the cup of water.   

The science behind this experiment was about, Newton's First Law, once the egg was moving, it didn't want to stop. The container of water interrupted the egg's fall, providing a safe place for the egg to stop moving so you could recover it unbroken. The gravity-pushed egg caused the water to splash out. 

I found it easy to hit the plate and toilet roll out from underneath the egg because all you had to do was give the the plate a short sharp tap and it shot out from under the egg. My partner Olivia gave both our eggs little cracks then later on I enlarged them, causing the yolk and egg whites to spill out. Nothing was really hard to do.

Next time I will not hesitate before I hit the plate because the times I did that the egg broke and created a rather large mess evolving a lot of water and some egg whites and yolks.  

M&M Stacking

We were learning about M&M stacking. The world record for M&M stacking is five, a British engineer got five and one of the Maori all blacks got five. The record for M&M stacking in the science elective is three. Vinny got three and Tyran got three. Before we did M&M stacking we stacked pebbles, the most I got there was five.

I found it easy to get two stacks of two but that was the most I got apart from one stack of three that lasted about two seconds. I figured out that the red and the orange M&Ms stuck well together with the Ms facing each other. 

It sounds like it would be easy to stack M&Ms but it is actually really hard. It is kind of like trying to stack sticky soccer balls. I could get two stacks of two but as soon as I tried to add one more to the stack it toppled over. 

Next time I will try to find the center of the M&Ms gravity so that it will balance better.

Flood Inquiry

We were learning about the three main floods that happened in New Zealand (The Tolaga bay, Kopuawhara and Southland floods). My personal favorite was the Tolaga bay one because it was the most recent one, I liked the the Kopuawhara one too though. This blog post is about the must do activity.

I found it hard to finish to my usual standard because like my create I was absent for the first day we did this. I soon caught up though by doing some of my work at home after school.  

I found it easy to answer the questions because of all the information that was put on this slide. The questions were the same as all the ones I've done before so I got them completed quickly. 

Next time I will try to put more detail into my answers so the reader is more highly entertained. This will be a goal that will be easy to complete. 

Create Emergency Kit

We were learning about the three main floods that happened in New Zealand (The Tolaga bay, Kopuawhara and Southland floods). My personal favorite was the Tolaga bay one because it was the most recent one. This blog post was the create activity, we had to make a emergency kit in case of a flood.

I found it hard to finish to my usual standard because I was absent for the first day we did this. I soon caught up though by doing some of my work at home after school. 

I found it easy to create my emergency kit because I had done something similar for reading. I used the same bag and radio but the others I used I polylined myself especially for this activity. 

Next time I will try and add more things to my emergency kit that you only need for floods. The thing I did this time had objects that could be used for all different types of natural disasters.