Mass of a Meter Stick Challenge

Mass of a Meter Stick

Mark and I worked together to find the mass of a meter stick in class this week. The main concept one must understand in order to complete this task is torque. Torque is, by definition, a twisting force that causes rotation. When you balance a meter stick off of the edge of a table (or some sort of pivot point) with a 100g weight on the end of it, the stick should balance somewhere around 25cm. From this discovery, you can determine the mass of the portion of the stick that is on the table and off of the table. If you add them together, you will have the mass of a meter stick and subtract 100g (the weight of the added weight). I had a lot of fun in this lab and it was even MORE rewarding when Mark and I realized that we were less than 1% off from the exact weight in grams of the meter stick. I learned from this that precise numbers and accurate readings are necessary when conducting an experiment. Overall, I enjoyed this lab! 

Torque Resource Post

Torque

In the easiest of terms, "Torque" (not to be confused with 'twerk'), is a force that makes objects want to rotate. Torque is a measure of how much a force acting on an object causes that object to rotate (clockwise or counterclockwise).

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This video gives us a quick and simple understanding of torque and how it functions. It was helpful that there were multiple different instances that showed torque being used in them and that someone went over the basics once again.

Resource Blog #1

Rotational Inertia

I felt quite strongly on my understanding of Rotational Inertia and how it works in class. But, by the time the open-note-quiz came around, I noticed that I still felt unsure about my answer. Mrs. Lawrence showed us a video and a real life example of Rotational Inertia and how it works. 

 

In the short video above, a man conducts the same kind of experiment that Mrs. Lawrence did in class, but for some reason watching it again really helped the concept to stick. Concluding that the reason the wooden block gets to the end of the ramp first is because more of its mass is closer to the axis of rotation, giving it less rotational inertia, making it move faster!

Angular Momentum

Angular Momentum was another topic we spoke about in class. I think that this video, which actually features a live classroom setting and a man creating the same effect as an ice skater has when she pulls in her arms, really helps to reinforce what we have been talking about in class.

   

This teacher is very animated (much like Mrs. Lawrence) and to watch someone talk about a certain topic, Angular Momentum in this case, with such enthusiasm makes it much easier to retain information.