Truck Torque

So for the past week or so, I have been enjoying my newly painted truck! And while doing so I realized that in a car there are many parts of the car that produce a torque and have a moment of inertia.  The first is probably the most obvious, the door.  The doors of cars are like many other types of doors. The handle is placed pretty far from the axis in so the lever arm is larger.  Since the lever arm is larger less force is needed to open the door.  So any time I open my car i produce a torque. The second item is the steering wheel.  When ever you drive a car you produce a torque because you are applying a force and the wheel has a lever arm which is equal to the radius.  The last part of the car I noticed was the seat adjuster.  Now alot of mornings i get in the car and I have to readjust the back of seat because it just never seems to be comfortable. So one morning i realized that ever time I adjust my seat I create a torque.  As I pull up on the lever I apply a force which is a certain distance away from the axis.  Now even though I just pointed out these three parts of the car, there are many other little things in a car that produce a torque. But most the time we don't stop to notice it.

Blog #7: Lets twist

So, I just got done with our christmas hula show... so much fun! Anyway, while we were rushing around getting ourselves and everyone else ready physics popped into my life once again.  For the kahiko portion, I had an opening number that required a shell lei. Now for hula shell lei are usually twisted before they are put on.  In order to do this one must use our friend, physics.  So you have about twelve strands of shells and you get them all in order and then hold out you hand and swing/ twist them.  In the physics sense, the force of you hand becomes the centripetal force, which forces the shells in a circular motion resulting in a beautifully twisted shell lei.  And in the end, with the help of my hula sister and brothers, and physics the Halau was able to put on a beautiful christmas concert. Mahalo to all!

Blog 6: The Salsa Incident

So this weekend i actually had some time to sit down, relax, and catch up on Hawaii 5-0.  I had gotten nice cup of lemonade and some chips and salsa and was enjoying the show when my cat, Tony again, began to bother me.  So I started to reach for him to put him on the ground when he freaked out thinking my hand was something attacking him.  It was seriously one of the funniest things I had ever seen as he jumped two to three feet in the air, landed, and dashed off. Then I realized when he landed he created a bouncy collision with my salsa container sending it flying with some of his transferred kenetic energy and landed well at this point I didnt know where.  So i began to search all around for about three minutes when I had the thought that the salsa had landed in the chip bag... but no that could never happen.  Well guess what guys, it did! Sitting right side up in the bag was the salsa. As Tony pushed off the ground he had changed his momentum from zero to some positive kg*m/s and when he collide with the container lost some energy as both were sent in the positive direction again.

The Circle of Life

So these past few weeks we have been learning about energy, work, and power.  And of all places that i thought about physics was during Lip Sync.  This year the seniors did a clip from Lion King's The Circle of Life.  We came up with the funny idea of having one of the senior boys lifting a smaller senior boy resembling when Rafiki presented Simba to the animal kingdom.  So during lip sync, Keahi was able to successfully lift Marc in the air for about five seconds.  As Kehai did this, he had no net work because there was no change in kenetic energy due to gravity acting in an equal and opposite way, but he did increase Marc's potential energy.  And since there was not net work, there was no way to find Keahi's power.

Trick

Blog #4: Diggin

Over the past two to three weeks my house has been a disaster as we are putting in a new wall and fence around our house.  It has been quite stressful seeing as the animals do not have room to run around and lot of their pent-up energy has been redirected to either barking or fighting. But fortunately, we have been able to add on to the yard.  On the side of my house I have always wanted to put in a Hawaiian gardenwith native hawaiian plants that I can use for hula or just grow for fun.  Luckily, I have been able to start this garden without the constant interruption of doggy trampling and digging.  While I was digging a hole for my Ki, Ti leaf, I realized that I was once again using physics. As I pushed the shovel into the ground at unknown angle, the ground was pushing back on me, but my force was greater.  I used my wight as a force and in the ground resisted with it's force. Along the way, the shovel experienced some friction with the ground as the dirt resisted the change in direction, which slowed down the acceleration of my push.  But like I said, in the end I forced the shovel through the ground and made myself a nice hole to plant my Ki in. It was a quite successful day.

Shoppin'

So, like every other Sunday, I was with my mom shopping at Sam's Club but this time was special because I realized that my shopping was related to physics.  As I was pushing the cart, our lessons about Newton's first, second, and third law popped into my head. From the very start, the cart was following Newton's first law of an object at rest will stay at rest until acted on by another force which happened to be me, and will stay in motion until a force is acted upon it which probably would be me or something else I may have run into.  As I was pushing the cart, I found that the second law also applied for if I found the net force and divided it by the mass of the cart, I could have calculated the acceleration.  The once again another realization, Newton's third law was taking place as well because every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As I pushed on the cart, it pushed back on me. In the end it was a great over all shopping trip because while getting food, i got to recap on what we have been learning in class.