Blog #7

Final Electricity Blog.
       This past week in physics we learned more about electricity, more specifically about schematics (how to draw circuits in a fashion understandable by the general people). We learned that jagged lines stand for resistors, straight lines for wires and a long line and a parallel short line for batteries. The long line tells the viewer that that is the positive side and the short line is the negative side. This is important because we can figure out which way the current flows. Using these three parts we can figure out how to correctly connect  everything so that the end product works correctly. This week we also learned that there are different kinds of circuits. The first type of circuit is a series circuit. In this case the batteries or resistors are lined up touching head to tail just like how elephants walk in trunk to tail lines. In a parallel circuit the batteries or resistors are side by side and each are their own path. The difference between the two is that series has only 1 path and a parallel circuit has multiple paths and all its paths are equal. The last type of circuit is a combination circuit. This circuit is a mix between a series and a parallel circuit.
      http://www.nelsonthornes.com/secondary/science/scinet/scinet/electric/circuits/types.htm this website has an interesting interactive image that allows you to see and understand the difference between a circuit in series or in parallel.
     The picture below shows a combination circuit.

Blog #6

Electricity Challenge.
      This week in physics Mr. Blake challenged us to lower our electricity bill. The reward would be being able to pocket the saved difference. It seemed like an easy challenge...charge my computer at school, charge my cell phone at school, shower at school, stay at a friends house...all these possibilities. BUT, I chose not to accept the challenge for a few of reasons.
     Reason #1: My first reason for not accepting the challenge was that my dad said I would need to pay the difference if the cost had increased from the previous bill. I did not want to lose money on this bet because the odds were against me. Also I personally would not be able to lower the bill by even 10 dollars because our bill on average is close to 200-250$. The chances of the next bill being higher was greater than my chances of lowering the bill.
    Reason #2: My younger brother. My brother is a scrawny sophomore who thinks he runs the world. He wastes electricity like crazy. First of all he is on his computer constantly and is always charging it. Plus he always has it plugged in even though it is not connected to his computer. Secondly, he almost always washes his clothes at night..."forgets to do it during the day cause he is on his computer"...then he throws them in the dryer before he goes to bed...then he runs the dryer in the morning again to warm up his clothes(warms up his clothes almost daily during these "freezing cold" months). Not only that but he also uses my mom's blow dryer to warm him up in the mornings. So the bill for February would be expensive because of him.
    Reason #3: I already do a lot of things that save money on electricity...wash clothes on cold, hang certain types of laundry, turn off lights before leaving rooms, charge things at school, and other things. We also aren't always home, we spend a lot of our time at our grandma's or cousins house on weekends and breaks.

Blog #5

Electricity, Current, Resistance. This blog is very late. Anyways...

This week in physics we continued to learn about electricity. More specifically we learned about current and resistance. Current is measured in Amperes (amps). It is the flow of electricity, just like the flow of water. Current can only flow if the circuit is complete. Resistors are part of electrical circuits that resist the electrical current so that it can be used...just like how dams resist the flow of water. An example of this in real life is quite easy to find because these two components are found in every electrical appliance.

     My picture is of a resistor. Funny looking? Well this resistor is used to control fan speed in air-conditioning systems in cars. The wires in the top of the picture are the paths that the current flows. In this particular circuit the resistance is constant. (the resistor is the big metal square). The way this system works is that as you turn the dial it allows current to flow from each of the wires above. If the dial is on 1 then only 1 path is allowed to flow through. If the dial is on 2 then only 2 paths are allowed to flow through, and so on. We had to replace this on our car because it was old and falling apart. So, as a fail safe, it only allowed the fan to run on one speed, max speed. Now that we replaced the resistor it works fine.

Blog #4

Capacitance and Voltage. This week in physics we learned about capacitance. Capacitance is electrical energy that is stored for a short time. Capacitance has a very high electric potential but has little charge. So it has a lot of voltage per charge, but not a lot of charge. Its formula is C=Q/V (Capacitance=charge/voltage). The units of capacitance are known as farads. Capacitance is used a lot today because of all the technology we have. To use computers we need to press buttons. These buttons are basically made of 2 plates separated a certain distance with epsilon in between. Epsilon is the conductive material between the 2 plates. The material used in between plates in modern technology is known as dielectric. When the plates touch the material in between them it releases the capacitance and sends the high voltage to the brain of the computer. This tells the computer what to type on the screen.

    My picture relates to this because it uses capacitance for it to work since it is a touch screen phone.

Blog #3

Potential of Electricity!
Electric Potential is the voltage of something. It is also known as electric Potential difference.The units for electric potential are joules/charge. Something in the "real world" that has electric potential is an outlet. It has a voltage because it has about 120volts/charge. The amount of volts isn't what hurts people it is the amount of charge that matters. My picture relates to this because it is a picture of a outlet. When I plugged in my laptop charger to this outlet it sparked. If I put a screwdriver in the outlet instead of a charger plug then I would have been electrocuted. Isn't that shocking?

Blog #2

Charges! This week in physics we started to learn about electric charges. There are three kinds of charges positive (+), negative (-), and neutral. The charge force law tells us that like charges repel and unlike charges attract. Now you maybe wondering why there is a picture of boxing gloves. Boxing gloves can represent this law if you were to imagine them as being positively charged. These gloves repel when hitting other gloves because they have like charges. But these gloves are very much attracted to neutral (no charge) faces. So when a boxing glove hits someone in the face it is very sore because the glove is as attracted to the face as the face is to the glove.

Semester 2 Blog #1

        Semester 2 PHYSICS! This week in physics we started to learn about electric charges, forces, and fields. We learned that there is a Law of Conservation of Charge, a charge-force law, and conductors and insulators. The Law of Conservation of Charge is that in an isolated system the net charge will remain constant. This means the charge in will equal the charge out (just like momentum and energy laws). The Charge-Force law tells us that like charges will repel (++, - -) and unlike charges will attract (+ -, o +, o -). Finally we learned about conductors and insulators. A conductor is an object that transfer electrons easily, for example metals. Insulators are objects that do not transfer electrons easily, for example rubber, glass, or plastics. These are all the main things we learned in physics. Besides all of this we also did a "magic tape" lab. This lab enabled us to learn about charges with an item we commonly use.

          My photo (left) is of a reflex boxing bag. This item has both insulators and conductors. The top of this unit is made of foam (insulator). The second part is the metal pole and spring which are both made of metals (conductor). The last part is the base which is made of plastic (insulator).