The frist 2 weeks of science class have been really busy. We were still in vacations and we had already received an e-mail from our teacher, Ms. Fernanda. The e-mail requested that we created a motor. I tried different types of motors by searching on YouTube: World's Simplest Motor. The search opened up an excessive number of results. After trying various times, I finally found a way of making my motor work. The materials I used were simply:
- AA Battery
- Wire
- Nail
- Magnet
If you are curious on knowing how it works, access the following link:
In that week, groups of three people were created to discuss and create a poster to teach the class about electricity and magnetism. My group was Caio Maksoud, Arthur Nasinbene, and myself. Each group had different topics, and ours was about Ohm's Law. Ohm's Law "solves many problems" in electricity and magnetism, especially by knowing the formula, which is: Resistance = Voltage/Current OR Voltage = Resistance x Current. After all, our presentation came out great, and I guess our friends learned a lot from us, just as we learned a lot from them, because every one received a blue paper, and a green paper, which we had to divide into 8 sections. Each section represented a topic.
With the 8 sections complete, we gathered the information to create a quiz on electricity and magnetism. Everyone had to create a quiz with 10 questions, and the questions couldn't involve definitions.
The 8 topics were:
- How electric charges interact.
- How charges can be transferred between materials.
- How an electrical current is produced.
- Comparison of conductors and insulators.
- How resistance affects current.
- Ohm's Law (Resistance, Current, and Voltage).
- Building series and parallel circuits and describing its parts.
- Relationship between power, voltage, and current.
Out of the 8 topics, the one that I know and understand the most is topic number 6, Ohm's Law, which was my topic. The one that I need the most help is how charges can be transferred between materials, but now I understand everything.
Ms. Fernanda couldn't come that day, and the substitute teacher couldn't help us, so the quiz wasn't perfect. She gave us the news that we had to recreate it in Google Form. I took my quiz home and reviewed the questions and answers. I did it again and it came out pretty well. If you are curious about it, you can access it by clicking on the link on my previous post. It is a multiple choice quiz. Please leave your name and the grade you thought you got out of ten in the bottom of the quiz.
During this week, we had to majorly understand how electromagnets work, and the explanation follows: as we know, an electric current produces a magnetic field. With that comes electromagnetism, which is the relationship between electricity and magnetism. You can't see electromagnetism to observe the effects on objects, but you can use a battery, wire, and paper clips. In fact, we did that in class some days before creating our motor. An electromagnet is simply a solenoid with a ferromagnetic core. A solenoid is a coil of wire with a current.
(Most of the information in this explanation were taken from our science book "Electricity and Magnetism").
With all the understanding we then had from electricity and magnetism, it was time for the assessment. We were given the assessment on Wednesday, and I thought I did very well. I just got confused when calculating some numbers (formulas confuse me). But everything was great and my grade was a 5. Now my average is a B-... BETTER THAN EVER!
Evaluating myself this week: I think I worked pretty well this week. I got all of my homework done and turned in on time. I also collaborated a lot with my group when creating the Ohm's Law poster (I wrote everything that is on the poster). To get better, I think I just have to concentrate more in class. Because it is the last class of the day I am a little tired. Not just me but mostly everyone, but I just have to deal with it, because it is going to be like this for the rest of my school years.
