Science of Sports and Toys:

Date:          Toy/Sport/Subject of the day

1/3/06        1.) Video (Peanuts) about inventions – I learned about inventions from the 1700s to the 1800s. The movie also talked about how Edison invented the first phonograph. He got the idea from a toy that used sound to make it move. This toy he made was for his daughter.                              The original phonograph

2.) ENERGY – I learned about nine different forms of energy. They are: chemical potential energy; nuclear energy; sound energy; heat, thermal, and internal energy; electric and magnetic energy; light energy; kinetic energy; gravitational energy; and elastic and spring potential energy.

3.) Toy - Slinky – I learned that this toy uses spring potential energy. This is the energy that causes the slinky to coil back up after it is stretched out.                    Glowing Mini Spring

4.) Toy – Popper – I learned about the many different forms of energy a popper uses to pop. These different forms of energy a popper uses are: elastic potential energy and elastic energy, sound energy, kinetic potential energy and kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy and gravitational energy.

5.) Toy - Safe Ball Shooter – This toy uses many of the same forms of energy a popper uses. From investigating this toy, I learned that it uses these forms of energy: spring potential energy and spring energy, sound energy, kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy and gravitational energy.

6.) Kickball/Dodge ball vectors & impulse/momentum – From playing these two games, I learned about three vectors. These three vectors are: force, gravity, and velocity. All of these vectors are used when playing kickball and dodge ball. The impulse in kickball is when the ball is kick. The impulse in dodge ball is when the ball hits another player. The momentum in these games is when the ball is thrown. The faster the momentum of a ball and the closer an object is, the harder the impulse will be in dodge ball.

1/4/06        1.) Speed – Today, I learned the equation to find objects velocity. By using this equation, I was able to find the speed of my popper in meters per second.

2.) Skiing power point – From this power point, I learned about the many different forms of energy used in skiing. There is gravitational energy that causes a skier to go down the hill. The kinetic energy is also present because a skier is moving. Friction helps a skier make sharp turns down the hill without falling over.

 3.) Volleyball power point – I learned more about momentum and in this power point about volleyball. Friction is what causes the volleyball to spin different ways depending on how it was served. In a floater serve, once the ball is served, the ball squishes and rounds out again as it spins through the air. The momentum of the ball hitting the molecules in the air causes this squishing and rounding out.

4.) Ping Pong – From playing Ping Pong, I learned about friction, impulse, and momentum. The friction from the racket, the table, and the air cause the ball to spin. Also, the momentum with which one serves the ball can affect the spin on the ball. If the ball hits the racket with too much momentum, the impulse of the hit can cause the ball to go past the table on the other side.

5.) Baseball – With baseball, I learned about momentum, velocity, and impulse. The faster the ball is pitched, the greater the impulse will be when the ball hits the bat. This impulse of the ball hitting the bat causes the ball to change directions.

6.) Frisbee Golf – I learned about vectors by playing Frisbee golf. In this game, velocity was very important. The faster the Frisbee’s velocity, the farther it would go before gravity pulled it to the ground. The force with which one throws the Frisbee determines the Frisbee’s velocity, unless the wind is blowing. If the wind is blowing, it can either slow down the Frisbee’s velocity or speed it up. 

1/5/06        1.) Bouncing Ball – I learned about using scientific calculators because I had never used one before, and I learned how to use a motion detector. I found out that the x-axis on the graph represented the floor and the time (in seconds) over which the ball bounced. Also, the y-axis represents the height (in meters). One other new thing I learned from this experiment was that the A in the quadratic equation represents half of gravity.         Bouncing Ball

                  2.) Simple Machines – Today, I learned about the six simple machines: wheel and axle, pulley system, wedge, screw, lever, and incline plane. The wheel and axle, pulley, and lever are all in the same family while the wedge, screw, and incline plane are in another family. A few other machines I learned about include gears, bevel gear, worm gear, rack and pinion, cam, crank and rod, chains and belts, and ratchets. Along with these machines, I learned about mechanical advantage. Mechanical advantage is the number of times the machine multiplies the effort force. A mechanical advantage less than one multiplies speed, a mechanical advantage equal to one changes direction, and a mechanical advantage greater than one multiplies force.                             Corkscrew

                  3.) Pull Back Cars – From playing with these cars, I learned a lot about friction, gears, mass and acceleration. The more friction between the tires of the car and the ground, the straighter the car will go and the less it will spin out. Also, by taking the car apart, I discover a series of gears on the inside. These gears store energy when the car is pulled backwards and release that energy when the car is released. The mass of the car also affects how the car moves. When the top of the car is on the wheels, the car goes straight, for the most part. If the top part of the car is removed, the same acceleration is present, but the mass is much less than before. This less mass and same acceleration causes the car to flip over almost as soon as it is released. So, the mass and acceleration of an object really affect the force the object releases because force is mass times acceleration.

1/6/05        1.) Toy Engine with moving gears/Hit & Flip Speedster – Today, I learned about inertia. Inertia is explained by Newton’s 1^st Law, which says it’s a tendency of anything that has mass to keep moving in a straight line. This is what makes these trains and cars work the way they do. Once the train or car has been started forward, it would keep going forward forever if there were no friction. But because there is friction between the train/car and the ground, the train eventually stops after awhile. A few machines seen in the train include a cam and a flywheel. The cam is the wheel in the train that has a large hump on it. Each time this wheel turns, the hump causes the smokestack of the train to move up and down as the train moves. The flywheel in the train and car has rotational inertia or a moment of inertia. This rotational inertia depends upon mass and how far the mass is away from the pivot. The flywheel in the train/car is what keeps it moving. Clearly, inertia plays an important role in both of these toys.  

                  2.) Video of the Physics of the Indy 500 – This video talked about five different parts of physics that are evident in the Indy 500. The first one is the Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy. This law says that energy cannot be created or destroyed. This law of physics is evident when a car at the Indy 500 crashes into the wall. All of that energy that had been moving forward had to go somewhere when the car blew up. Most of that energy goes into the pieces of the car so the driver is not hurt as badly. The second thing the video discussed was centripetal force. This force is force in towards the center. The faster the cars race around the track, the more centripetal force pulls on the cars. Centripetal force helps keep the cars on the track. Newton’s 3^rd Law was talked about next in the video. This law is shown as the racecar’s tires push forward, there is an equal and opposite force in the track pushing the other way. The Doppler Effect was discussed next in the video. This effect is what makes a racecar sound high pitched as it approaches, but as soon as the car passes, the pitch drops drastically. The reason for this change in pitch is because as the car approaches, the sound waves are pushed closer together. This gives the car a higher sounding pitch. Once the car passes, the sound waves spread out and are so close together. This gives the car a lower sounding pitch. Finally, the fifth thing talked about in the video was the Bernoulli Effect. This effect is what keeps the racecars from flying off the track. Racecars are designed in such a way that the high air pressure goes over the car and the low air presser goes under the car. For an airplane though, these two air pressures are switched so that the high air pressure is under the plane and the low air pressure is on top. The same high air pressure under a plane that lifts it into the air is the same pressure that goes over a racecar to keep it on the track. That’s pretty cool.

                  3.) Physics at work in Sports/ Center of Mass – Center of mass is very important in many sports. In gymnastics, for instance, a gymnast will fall off the balance beam if she does not keep her center of mass over the beam. Other sports where a low center of mass is needed are in wrestling, hockey, volleyball, etc. Another element of physics used in sports quite often is friction. Friction is what helps runners, ice skaters, cyclists, and motorcyclists turn corners at great speeds without falling over. So both friction and center of mass are very important in many sports.

                  4.) Paper Airplanes – I had so much fun making and flying the paper airplanes today. I discovered that the Tractor plane did many loops and stayed in the air the longest, but it hardly went anywhere for distance. This plane stayed in the air the longest probably because it had the largest wingspan. Even though this wingspan was an advantage for flight time, it was a disadvantage when it came to distance. Because the larger wingspan gave the plane more mass, its weight was more so it could not go very far before it landed on the ground. The Improved Dart went farther than the Tractor, but because it was a larger plane, it could not stay up in the air as long as the Tractor. The Improved, Improved Dart turned out to be the best plane for distance. Even though it did not stay in the air very long because it’s wingspan was fairly small, it was light enough to stay in the air long enough to go farther than the other planes. Over all, each of these planes has their good physical qualities and their not so good physical qualities.

1/9/06        1.) Sports Ball Pop Ups – With this toy, I learned more about energy. This toy deals with three main forms of energy. The first energy is spring potential energy. This energy is stored in the spring when the suction cup is pressed onto the base of the toy. The spring potential energy stored in the spring is converted into kinetic energy once the toy pops. This kinetic energy is then converted into gravitational energy as the toy falls back to the ground.

2.) Flying Toys – Today, I got to play with three different flying toys. They were: a sailing propeller, a whirly gig, and helicopters with a launcher. All three of these toys were designed in such a way that the high air pressure is flowing under the toy, and the low energy pressure is flowing over the toy. This causes these toys to lift into the air. After measuring the heights of each of these toys, the whirly gig turned out to fly the highest. Next in height came the helicopter and then the propeller. The whirly gig probably went the highest because it had more rotational inertia than the other two, causing it to spin faster and therefore, go higher. One other thing I learned from playing with these toys was the equation for gravitational potential energy. The whirly gig also ended up having a higher gravitational potential energy than the other two toys.

3.) Mini Laser Tops – Today, I learned many things about tops that I never knew about before. One of the things I learned about tops is that they have a stable equilibrium. This means that the top can tip from side to side and not fall over. Rotational motion is what causes the top to continue spinning around once the top has left a persons hand. This rotational motion causes the top to have an angular velocity. One other aspect of the top that applies to physics is the design on top of the top. This design is a reflecting image. The image reflects light as the top spins around. As the top spins, the design seems to change shape and become a different looking design. That’s fun to watch.

1/10/06            1.) Tops – Today I learned about seven different types of tops: wooden tops, wooden hand tops, somersaulting tops, mini laser tops, big laser tops, swirl tops, and the Skittles game top. The top that spun for the longest time ended up being the wooden hand top. This top definitely had a greater mass than many of the other little plastic tops I used. Also, the wooden hand top had a fairly low center of mass that also helped it stay up longer than the other tops. Just like the mini laser tops I played with yesterday, all of these tops also have a stable equilibrium. That is why they can tilt from side to side without falling over. The greater a top’s angular velocity was, the faster and straighter the top spun around. As the top started it’s procession, the angular velocity slowed down and the top began to wobble around more until it stopped on the floor.

                        2.) Ice Princess (video) – From this movie, I learned more about the physics involved in ice skating. (I also learned that Disney is not always correct with their physics equations :o). When spinning on the ice and you hold your arms out, you do not spin very fast. If you begin spinning and pull your arms in, then you spin faster. This is because when you hold your arms out, you have a lot of rotational inertia and only a little bit of angular velocity. So, you do not spin very fast. If you spin around and then pull in your arms, it increases your angular velocity and decreases your rotational inertia. This causes you to spin around faster. This is one of the things I learned about the physics involved in ice skating.

1/11/06            1.) Ice Skating – Today I had such a fun time learning about ice skating and the physics involved. Nicole Bright did an amazing job with the spins and jump. When I watched her spin around, the physics of the spin really stood out and made a difference in what the spin looked like. One of the things I learned today was about the conservation of angular momentum. This means that when Nicole was spinning, her angular momentum never changed even if her speed did. When Nicole spun around with her arms spread out, she had a large amount of rotational inertia and only a little angular velocity. This made her spin slowly. But when she pulled her arms in, her rotational inertia decreased and her angular velocity increased. This made her spin faster. It is the same way with a spinning jump. When you jump into the air and spin with your arms out, you do not spin very fast. This is because you have a greater amount of rotational inertia than angular velocity. But, if you jump into the air and pull your arms close to your body, then you will spin faster. By pulling your arms in close, your angular velocity becomes greater than your rotational inertia. I wish I could try out some of these jumps and spins myself, but I think I might just break something instead. Also, because there is such a small amount of friction between the blade of the ice skates and the ice itself, it would be very hard to push off without toe picks on the front of the skates. Toe picks are there to give a skater a little more friction between the skate blades and the ice so the skater can push off of the ice and jump or spin without slipping so much.

1/12/06            1.) Floating Ball Pipe – This toy demonstrates the Bernoulli Principle very well. When I blew through the pipe, the ball in the basket at the other end of the pipe pops into the air. It floats up and down for a second before it settles into a spot a little above the plastic basket. Once I ran out of air, the ball dropped back into the basket. The reason that the ball moved up and down when I first start to blow is because I was not blowing at a consistent rate. The ball quickly settled into a central spot once my blowing became more consistent. The Bernoulli Principle is what kept this ball floating in the air. The ball floated in the air because there were forces pushing on the ball from every side causing the ball to stay in one place. My hypothesis about what would happen when the pipe was tipped slightly to the side was correct. I said that the ball would still float the same as it did when the pipe was straight up because the pressures on the ball would be the same. It did turn out like this because the pressures on the ball are the same slightly tilted and straight up. So, the ball behaved the exact same way except that this time when I ran out of air, the ball fell to the ground instead of into the little basket.

2.) The Science and Technology of Musical Sound (power point) – This power point was really fun because it mostly talked about the physics involved in flutes and that is the instrument I play. The power point talked about how the open holes in a flute tube change to different notes. This is because the open holes make reflections in the air going through the flute and that changes the sound the flute makes. Also, the harder the air is blown into a flute affect the pitch of the note. I learned that air below a certain velocity is stable. That is why someone can blow into a flute and not make any sound. An interesting fact I learned about flutes was that only about 1% of the energy of the air stream produces sound. That is why flutes are so hard to play and make sounds from at first. Also in this power point was a little part about recorders and whistles. From this part, I learned that the part of the whistle that is blown into is called a flue and the little rectangular shaped hole close to the flue is called a fipple. I thought this was very interesting because I never knew that before.

3.) Bouncy Balls – I learned a lot about balls and how they bounce today. I discovered that the basketball I used bounced the lowest on the wooden gym floor and the highest on the auxiliary gym floor. The bouncy ball, on the other hand, bounced the lowest on the carpet and the highest on the auxiliary gym floor. These balls probably bounced highest on the auxiliary gym floor because that floor is made out a rubbery substance. The carpet, though, has a lot of give to it so the balls do not bounce off of it as high. I don’t know why the balls did not bounce very high on the wooden gym floor.

4.) Wall Walker – This was another interesting toy to play with. With this one, you throw it against a hard surface. The sticky head, hands, and feet of the Wall Walker stick to the surface because of adhesion. Adhesion is when one type of molecules is attracted to another type of molecules it comes in contact with. Cohesion is when the same type of molecules is attracted to one another, causing then to stick together. Cohesion is demonstrated when the sticky hands and the sticky feet of the Wall Walker stick together. The force of gravity pulling on the Wall Walker slowly breaks the adhesion between the sticky hands and feet and the hard surface. This causes the Wall Walker to flip over and stick again. Then it flips over and sticks again until something stops it or it falls off.

5.) Glowing Mini Slinky and Glowing Bouncy Ball – This was an interesting experiment to do. After the two toys had been held by a light, the slinky always seemed to glow brighter than the ball. The slinky also glowed longer than the ball did. This is probably because the pink and yellow of the slinky hold light better than the blue of the ball. The different lights I held the toys up to also affected how long they glowed. The fluorescent light caused both toys to glow longer than they did with any other type of light. This is probably because the fluorescent light was brighter and more intense than either of the other two lights. This would cause the toys to also glow brighter and longer.

1/13/06            1.) Modern Marvels: Remote Controlled Objects (video) – It was very interesting to see how remote controlled objects have developed over the years. Two of the key principles for remote controlled objects are: communications and man machine interface. Communication is extremely important when dealing with remote controlled objects. If the driver of the object cannot give commands to the object, the object becomes worthless. The first long-range missal to ever be controlled by a remote was called V2. Predator was the first remote control operated airplane used in war. Shaky was the first robot with artificial intelligence. The remote controlled machine that went through a desert to scout it out was called Nomad. This machine explored where no man could survive long enough to explore. CURV retrieved a lost torpedo. Alvin discovered a lost bomb on March 15 after many people had searched for two months. These are just a few of the amazing things man has been able to do with remote controlled objects.        Remote Controlled Airplane

2.) Remote Controlled Cars – I had so much fun playing with these cars today. (Mr. Bird, your Tumble Rumble Car was definitely the best one over all  :o). I learned the most about frequencies. The higher the frequency was, the higher the energy. The Tumble Rumble car had one of the highest frequencies of 49 MHz so it could go 50+ miles away from its driver and still work. The strange thing is that the little yellow Mitsubishi also had a frequency of 49 MHz, but it only went 1 meter away from its driver before it couldn’t go any further. One thing that could have interfered is that many of the other cars also had a 49 MHz frequency. When cars of the same frequency get too close to one anther, they cause one another to stop working, or the driver of the other car starts controlling a different car on the same frequency. Either one of these interferences could have caused the little yellow Mitsubishi to not go as far as it should have gone. Either way, I still had a great time racing and watching these remote control cars.                  Remote Control Tumble Rumble Car

3.) Whistles – This is another fun, but loud, toy. First of all, I must identify the two parts of this whistle that I know. The part that you blow through is called the flue and the rectangular shaped hole right behind the flue is called the fipple. When I blew into the whistle with the stick at the end pushed in all the way, the pitch of the note produced was quite high. As I slowly pulled the stick farther and farther out of the whistle, the pitch of the note decreased. This happened because sound is a wave. When there was not very much room in the whistle for the air to move around, the sound waves produced were shorter. This gave the produced sound a higher pitch. As the stick was pulled out of the whistle, the area inside the whistle increased. This gave the air more room, which in turn produced longer sound waves and a deeper pitch. So, by increasing or decreasing the space inside of the whistle, I could create different notes and sounds.                      Slide Whistles

1/17/06            1.) Electricity – Today I learned so much about electricity. There are two different kinds of electrical currents: direct current (dc) and alternating current (ac). The three different sources for these currents are chemical (which would be batteries), mechanical, and light. Kirchoff’s Rules are the general rules for voltage and currents. The first rule is the Junction Rule. This rule says that the sum of the currents entering a junction must be the same when the currents leave the junction. The second rule is the Loop Rule. This rule is the conservation of energy. The other thing I learned about parallel circuits and series circuits. In a parallel circuit, one light bulb can burn out but the others will not turn off because they are on a different circuit. In a series circuit, all the circuits are connected one through one another. Therefore, if one light bulb burns out, then all of the light bulbs after it will turn off because they are not getting any energy. This is why houses are wired with parallel circuits and not series circuits. To find out more about electricity and circuits, we played Operation, Conga, and Taboo. I had so much fun playing all of these games.

                          Operation                                              Cranium Conga                                          Taboo  

2.) Mini Horns – I played with this little horn today and learned that they are very loud when a bunch of people blow on them all at once. The two elements that any musical instrument needs are something that vibrates and something that amplifies. This horn has both of these elements. When a person blows through the white mouthpiece, it causes a little white piece of plastic to vibrate back and forth. This little vibration would not be very loud if there was nothing to amplify the sound. That is why this horn as a larger colored part after the white mouthpiece. This part (purple on mine) amplifies the sound the vibrating piece of plastic emits. That is what makes this toy so loud.                       Mini Horns 

1/18/06            1.) Electricity (video) – Today I learned a little more about electricity from this video. One of the most important things from this I learned from this video is that electric currents are produced through wires moving in a magnetic field. A few of the elements needed to make electricity include: heat, fuel to produce the heat, water that the heat turns into stream, and a turbine. One way to produce static electricity is by rubbing a cat or combing a sheep. By doing this, the extra electrons from the cat or sheep are picked up. This creates static electricity.        Sheep with scissors and comb                                                                   Boy petting a cat 

                        2.) Conceptual Physics: Magnetism and Electromagnetic Induction (video) – This video was very interesting to watch. One of the things I learned is that compasses line up with the magnetic field, causing then to point north. The source of all magnetism is moving electric charges. Some objects that are not magnets can become magnets if they have electricity. Michael Faraway and Joseph Henry discovered that the motion of a wire and a magnetic field could produce electricity without a battery. When they increased the number of wires from one to two, they saw that the current of electricity was doubled. The current of electricity tripled with three wires. They said that a changing magnetic field in the presence of a closed loop of wire induces current. To demonstrate magnetism with toys, we played games with magnetic marbles. It was so much fun!

                                                    Magnetic Marbles