Blog 3: Hanging monkey

Anyone know how to rotate the picture? *fails*

Haha, well the picture is supposed to be of a stuffed monkey hanging with a bunch of other assorted things hanging on him...but he looks like he's defying gravity right now. (Wicked!!) Besides just the monkey hanging from some speakers...there's two peace necklaces (one is hiding behind the "yellow brick" from the Wiz), an origami wreath, a momento from the Wiz and a Stich on a banana facing the wall (yeah, I don't know either. It just is...). They reminded me of the free body diagrams and tension. Most of the various hanging objects are on a string with a V shape. However, they are not quite the same as our free body diagrams because the tension in the strings cannot be measured separately. (It's really one string attached in a circle and not two or more strings pulling in different directions.) Since the monkey has suction cup hands, maybe if I pulled them apart and stuck them on the ceiling at different distances away from the monkey (the weight) itself, it would be a better representation of tension. But I'm a bit short to reach the ceiling so someone else can give it a try. :D

Blog 2: Ducks and Uno ATTACK

This is projectile motion...

...But so is this! The first picture is of a toy I got for my birthday from a friend a few years ago. It has devil ducks and you can place them in the launcher, cover it, pull the trigger, and the duck goes flying! It travels pretty far actually. It was a strange birthday present...but the tiny devil ducks are pretty cute. :D The second picture is of UNO ATTACK! It's like regular uno, but instead of picking a card, you hit the button and it spits out anywhere from zero to eight cards! Or was it six? The deck is underneath the red covering on a small platform which (I believe) has a roller mechanism that makes the cards shoot out from the opening (so the cards on the bottom of the deck fly out first). Pushing that button can be a little stressful...especially because one of the rules in uno attack is that anyone who makes a suggestion (like "play the blue reverse card!") has to push the button four times!

Blog 1: Superferry + Parasailing

Looking through old photos...Tada! A parasailer hanging out near the Superferry! I'm a little sad about the Superferry leaving (since my family also had free roundtrip tickets) but when the Superferry WAS running I snapped this photo on the way back from Maui. This parasailer doesn't fall at -9.8 meters per second, thanks to wind power! Looking at this photo now, I was reminded of our graphs on displacement, velocity and acceleration. However, if there was a stationary motion sensor watching the parasailer, I think the corresponding graph would look pretty strange! Even if the Superferry was being measured by the motion sensor, it could move out of the path. The parasailer could also change its velocity (direction and speed) by adjusting the shape and orientation of the parachute. The Superferry also has its own set of physics! it gets propelled forward by water jets that shoot water in the opposite direction. Action reaction! Though we haven't learned that yet. :] That's all for today, but I'm sure I'll be learning a lot more physics for future posts!