Best Cannons

What is a cannon? Only the epitome of applied physics, of course! A cannon is a large, heavy gun, used with gunpowder to launch projectiles through the air. Although presently the cannon is no longer used in warfare, cannons still prove to be a cornerstone of classical physics.

The Tsar cannon, one of the largest cannons in the world, capable of shooting 1-ton cannonballs.

Not long ago, Mr. Chung showed our class a cannon made from last semester. This cannon was made from pop cans and tape, last I remember. Hopefully we'd be making a device of similar ablilty in the near future.

Newton's lab results

On Friday, I overcame my fears of car crashes, ticker tape, and pulleys, and tested out Newton's laws.
We had a cart, ticker tape, 100g weights, and were asked to test out various scenerios with regards to force and mass, hence acceleration.

This is a googled example of what we did in class (same concept really).

I have to double check the results, i'm not entirely sold on mine...

Building our tallest structure

Using Newton's law, we were asked to build our own tallest structure.
Our own tallest structure conveyed great height...yet it wasn't enough to overcome the concept of standing.
As you can see in the picture below, although the tower had enough height, it required Patrick to support it as we took our group picture.

The reason why we believe our tower didn't stand is simple; our base was too light. If we'd had a stronger base, possibly one that was filled instead of hollow, I believe that our structure would've had a good chance of standing against gravity.
Also, extra support along the sides acting as wire to bind the tower to the ground would've been useful, although illegal, under Mr. Chung's rules.

5 types of projectile motion

Is it just me or does blogger make simple tasks complicated?

I'll rotate and space these beautifully after I do my blogger tutorial. Regardless, here's proof I did my homework :)

Case 1



Case 3





Case 5









Case 4





Case 2



The Tallest Building in the world

As of 2011, many booming skyscrapers stand on God's green Earth, but I only need to discuss one, feel free to google the rest. :)


The Burj Khalifa (Khalifa tower) is a free standing superskyscraper in Dubai, finished as of 2008. The tower, boasting over 828m tall, consists of 160 stories used for permanent and temporary residence, observation decks, conference rooms, suites, and lobbies.

The Burj Khalifa

To build the tallest tower possible with paper and tape, the plan would to probably be to roll the paper into cylinder shapes as support, and then to make the cylinders narrower as we go up the structure. That's our plan, wish us luck.

Aerodynamics

The other day, I was having a conversation with my good friend Alex, when the topic of kinematic in-class projects came up. Apparently, last semester, the physics classes were assigned the task of building an egg dropper, whereas this semester, we're assigned the far more challenging task of an egg glider. Why Mr. Chung decides to add a whole new dimension to our project, I don't know.

When I first saw the word "aerodynamics", I singled out the "Aero" and thought chocolate bar. Thankfully, I was diligent enough to go home and google the actual definition. Aerodynamics is the study of forces and the resulting motion of objects through the air. Pretty straightforward, but how's this piece of knowledge going to help me build an egg glider?

....Well it won't, but I did fulfill one of the requirements for my blog. The second part includes brainstorming for the ominous task of actual handiwork. The question is: What's the best way to build a working egg glider with 25 straws, a "desk's width of tape", and one sheet of metro newspaper? Panic and grief, here I come.

The most effective way that my sleep-deprived brain can conjure up is the thought of a glider. A glider, although time consuming and tedious to make, proves also to be the most common method suggested amongst physics bloggers on bing. The glider consists of a body, two wings, and a tail. Images are shown below.




This is a pretty cool angle of a glider. Now how to make this out of straws & tape...?



Perhaps the egg can be our passenger? Who knows.

Kinematics Homework

Neat homework check idea.