Week 3 flew by at breakneck velocity! Week 4 accelerates in.
Updated September 10, 2021 This is your class landing page, you will want to come here every week to check for any class announcements.
Week 3 Summary
Distance, displacement, speed, and velocity Hopefully you all understand the difference between distance (d) and displacement (delta x), and how speed is different from velocity (both equations below). Since displacement is a component in velocity and is a vector quantity, velocity is similarly a vector quantity. What that means is when discussing the velocity of a moving body, we describe it's motion as having both a magnitude and direction relative to some origin.
Acceleration Acceleration, like velocity, is called a vector quantity - that is, when observing the acceleration of a moving body, you not only have to look at the magnitude of the acceleration, but the direction as well. Acceleration can be summarized accordingly:
like velocity - acceleration can be in either the positive or negative direction with respect to an origin
an acceleration will have a positive value, if the object is speeding up in the positive direction
an acceleration will have a negative value, if the object is slowing down in the positive direction (sometimes termed a deceleration)
The most important thing you should remember about acceleration is that it measures the rate of change of the velocity of an object. When an automobile goes from 0 m/s to 6 m/s in 12 seconds, it is experiencing an acceleration (a = 2 m/s/ s); by contrast, if it is travels at a constant speed (3 m/s) over the course of 12 seconds, then it is not experiencing an acceleration (a = 0). The equation for calculating acceleration is above.
What to expect in Week 4
This week we should complete Chapter 2 - Describing Motion: For your review it is divided into the sections below:
Section 2.1 - Position, Velocity, and Acceleration
Section 2.2 - Position vs. Time Graphs
Section 2.3 - Velocity vs. Time Graphs
Motion can be verbally described, and graphed This week we will learn how to graph motion, using Skill & Practice worksheet 2H - Graphing Practice and 2J - Slope and Motion Graphs. After we solve a few more acceleration problems on 2G, we'll launch right into these on Tuesday. This will prepare us for the laboratory on Thursday.
You will learn this week in the same way we can express the motion of an object with a verbal description (the car traveled east at a velocity of 20 m/s), we can save our words and express motion with a graph - note the various types of graphs below.
Thus, on Tuesday, you will learn how to plot data in various motion graphs, and on Thursday, you will collect data on two different K'NEX cars, record their velocities in a data table, and plot their motion on graphs.
Check-off List of Things to Do:
Please make sure you do the following before next week: Tues, September 14th:
Print out and bring to class: Skill & Practice 2H and 2I
Bring to class: Skill & Practice 2G (we started this on Thursday)
Watch all three videos for Chapter 2, so you can come to class prepared to discuss the material
Thurs, September 16th:
Print out, read, and bring to class: K'NEX Lab - Graphing Average Velocity
Prepare for in-class Quiz #4
Week 4 Resources/ Assets
Use the "Class Questions Forum" to ask any questions about assignments, labs, quizzes, due dates, etc.