What We Learned

The past couple of weeks, we have learned and rediscovered several factors from the Electricity unit. So far we've learned/revisited:

- How to build a motor

- How it works

- The three methods in which charges are transfered (Friction, Conduction, Induction)

- The difference between conductors (which are the materials that can carry charges within it) and insulators (the material that resists to the flow of electric current).

- The reaction between two opposite charges (attract) and similar charges (repel)

- The affect of resistance on an electric current (it makes it more difficult for the current to flow)

- The factors that can affect the current (width and length of the conductor)

- What is the voltage, resistance, current and how they are related.

Those are some of the concepts we began rediscovering during the first week.
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There were several presentations that had the objective to inform the class about many parts of the Electricity unit. From definitions of terms to how the electrons flow in a conductor, the presentations gave us a clear notice of what we were to learn for that unit. The concepts explored were:

- What happens when two (opposite or similar) come together
- The ways to transfers charges
- What is an electric current and voltage and how they relate
- Conductors and Insulators
- Resistance x Current
- Ohm's Law
- Series x Parallel Circuits
-Difference between voltage, current and power

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TWO OPPOSITE POLES COME TOGETHER?

The basic answer to this would be that they attract. However, going into a bit more depth it is because the two poles have magnetic fields in which interact with each other when they are close. By having two opposite charges ( one being + and one being - ), the fields will become neutral when attached.

THE WAYS CHARGES TRANSFER:

There are three types of transfer: friction, conduction and induction.

The first is friction.

FRICTION happens when you rub two objects together. In analysis, the electrons are "ripped" off of one material and passed to the other. This happens when these elctrons have weaker bonds.

Conduction is when the two objects actually have a physical contact hense conduction also being called "charged by contact". An example would be your finger going inside an electrical outlet.

The last type of transfer, INDUCTION, is when a conductor (a material in which the current of electrons can flow like metal) is possible to be charged without actual physical contact. For example, when you walk on a carpeted floor about to go into your room, just before your hand grips the doorknob you are shocked. This is because the electrons in your hand come in contact with the charges of the doorknob.

ELECTRIC CURRENTS AND VOLTAGE: HOW ARE THEY RELATED?

An electric current is the rate of charge flow past a given point in a circuit and is measured in Amperes (Amps or A). Voltage, however, is the "push" that gets the current moving. Scientifically stating, the voltage is the difference in potential energy.

How they are related brings us to a whole new level. Imagine you have a small toy car sitting on your floor. To move that car you will need a force to give it its push. The car represents the current and your finger *which is whats pushing the car* is the voltage. Respectively, the harder the push, the faster the car will go. This is what happens with voltage and current. While in a circuit, if the voltage is of 220V, the current will move faster than being pushed by 110V.

CONDUCTORS VS. INSULATORS

Conductors and insulators are easy to be mixed up but have very different jobs. An insulator is a material that slows down the flow of electrons such as rubber. This is efficient in wires, for example, because it protects your hand from being shocked. A conductor, on the other hand, is a material that allows electrons to travel freely, such as metal.

Both of these factors, however, work together. In a copper wire, the copper is what carries the electrons (conductor) while the insulator is the rubber around that wire. This produces both efficiency and safety.

RESISTANCE AND CURRENT

Resistance and current are two rivals. While current struggles to move freely, resistance is what makes its day worse.

Imagine a hallway. Its afterschool and no one is present but you. You forgot your backpack at the far end of the hallway and you freely, without any struggle, are able to walk and retrieve it. This is an example of a circuit with little to no resistance. Now picture the same hallway but crowded with people whom are rushing to get to their classes. You class is the last room and you find yourself at the other end of the hall. Getting to your destination becomes difficult and smothering because of the high resistance, so that affects the way you move, or your "current".

Resistance or resistor is what opposes the path of electrons. The more resistance you have, the less current and vice versa. Resistors can be lightbulbs and hair dryers. The resistance, however, is not a bad thing. If you have a current moving too fast in a circuit, in a matter of minutes, that appliance may burn because of the heat produced. The resistance lowers the speed so that the electric appliance may function without over heating.

WHAT IS OHM'S LAW?

Ohm's Law states that the current through a conductor between two points is proportional to the potential difference across the two points (voltage). Basically, this states that the factors of a circuit (being resistance, voltage, power and current) are all connected to each other. For example, you have a circuit in which the baterry is of 9V (or volts), with overall resistance of 11 ohms but you do not have the current. To find this, you will produce the following formula:

R= V/I where R is for resistance, V for voltage and I for current. You plug in the values into the equation and get the following:

11 = 9/I

If you solve for I you will discover how much current (A) you have in that circuit given the resistance and the voltage.


CIRCUITS

There are two types of circuits we are familiar with right now. The PARALLEL CIRCUIT and the SERIES CIRCUIT.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SERIES AND PARALLEL CIRCUITS?

Parallel circuits are like your christmas lights you hang on your tree. If you may notice, some specific brands of christmas lights utilize a parallel circuit. Why? Because whenever one light in a wire burns out, the others continue to function correctly. Therefore, the lightbulbs do not depend on each other, they are independent from the other's malfunction. A series, however, is the exact opposite. If one light breaks, the whole circuit will not work. This is because the resistors are palce on the same wire, as you can see on the picture. So the current travels through the first bulb, then goes to the second, and so on. If the first one is broken, it interrupts that flow and the circuit turns into a hault.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VOLTAGE, POWER AND CURRENT

While voltage is the push that makes the current move, the power is the rate that the electric energy is transfered by the current. To find out the power in an equation, the formula is P= V X I. In other words, power is equal to the product of voltage and current. Power is measured in WATTS.

The difference between those three factors is that the voltage is the PUSH in a circuit, the CURRENT is what carries the electrons which is moved BY the voltage and the power is the resulting electrical energy transfered by the current.

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Also, for the first week of class we were challenged to create a motor. This is the one I built:

Materials:

- Two soda cans
- Copper wire
- Plastic cup
- Ballpoint pen
- Hot glue gun
- Television
- Aluminum foil
- Tape
- Clips
- Patience



My motor was a bit more complicated to understand. Technically, the large sheet of aluminum foil would be stuck the screen of a television and with the large discharge of voltage it gives off when turned on, the electrons would travel down the copper wire to the first can and then transfer to the clip on the end of the can. By induction, the plastic cup in the middle would move as the electrons would transfer to the bits of aluminum foil on it. The same process would occur to the last can and the electrons would be dragged down to a ground connection such as the a metal tables legs that are pointed towards the ground.

Here is a video of how it is done:

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-make-motor-from-plastic-cup-205520/

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So far, I've had challenges and successes during the course. The real challenge was to build the motor, which was highly dangerous since I could be shocked since there were insulators protecting me from the cans nor the clips. I tried many times and yet failed all of them. Exept for the last chance, and it worked out given the fact that I changed the copper wire that was hooked to the foil screen attached to the TV (I made it wider which affects the current). This taught me something important about the factors that can change the current: the temperature, the width, the length and the type of material. But, unfortunently, the motors only worked for about two to three seconds since I had no ground connection which is a material that simply leads down to the floor to dispose of the electrons.

My success was that, even though it underwent a lot of construction, my motor did work for a moment. By learning new things during the process, falling 7 times standing back up 8, I was successful to make it work, but too bad no one was there to see it actually happening.
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Electricity Quiz

We were asked to prepare a ten multiple question quiz we would use to challenge our classmates and by so study for the upcoming test. The test had to be a general summarization of all the concepts and could not include question that involved the definition of a term nor could it include the option *all of the above* (which was a bummer for many of the people).

My quiz is posted on the post below!

My Quiz

Motor

Electricity, magnets, wires, they all come together to make up many of the world's major running motors that make our cars and small home appliances work.
I made a scaled motor that uses the voltage discharge of a TV when flicked on and off, aluminum foil, wires, cardboard, a ball-point pen and two soda cans.

This is how it looked like:

This following video will explain how it is set up and how it works, just click on the link!:

<!--embed video="Make a motor from a plastic cup"--><div style="pading:0;margin:0;border:0;"><div style="margin:auto;text-align:center;pading:0;margin:0;border:0;width:640px;background:#383333;cursor:default;"><p style="text-align:center;font-size:9px;padding:2px 0;margin:0;border:0;color:#969696;font-family:arial;height:12px;">Learn <a style="color:#CCC;text-decoration:none;font-family:arial;" href="http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-make-motor-from-plastic-cup-205520/">How to make a motor from a plastic cup</a>. For more <a style="color:#CCC;text-decoration:none;font-family:arial;" href="http://www.wonderhowto.com/hobbies-toys/construction-mechanical-video/">Construction &amp; Mechanical How-To Videos &amp; Articles</a>, visit <a style="color:#CCC;text-decoration:none;font-family:arial;" href="http://www.wonderhowto.com/">WonderHowTo</a>.</p><div style="margin:auto;padding:0;border:0"><embed src="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/1416174/crazy_cup_the_motor.swf" width="640" height="392" wmode="transparent" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="playerVars=autoPlay=no"></embed></div></div></div>

Props to the crew at WonderHowTo for making this video!

As you can see, when the aluminum foil picks up the high voltage discharge emitted from the TV screen once it is turned on, the electrons travel through the wire down to the first can. The electrons begin to make the plastic cup turn by the transfer of Conduction. The electrons travel to the next can and is taken to a ground connection to avoid the overflow of electrons and eventual BOOM!

Science Project

A few weeks ago, our teacher, Ms. Silva, gave us the objective to create some sort of educational material that would be used by a company called Zoinks. The class went to work, ready to create educational yet creative material. We were given a sheet with inumerous concepts we were to include in our project in order to prove our understanding of the past science classes.

At first, I had the idea to make a puppet show. But, as time gave out, I began writing a short story that became a near 40 page book.  The book tells the story of Lenny, one of my puppets that I had created for the project, a newcomer to a science facility named SFFA, that has to go through puzzles and riddles that will test his mental capability when it comes to science. This entire problem is caused when Lenny's workmate and secret crush, Jenny, is kinapped.

I realized that, nowadays, even with technology being the dominant growing source of entertainment, books are also good sources of learning. Even though I believe puppet shows would be more amusing than books, depending on the story and the grip, books can be just as eye catching as puppets.

I answer the science questions by the following ways:

"Lenny left the office and walked straight down the hall. His mind had never been so full of confusion. He had the talent of blocking out any type of concern. Like a cell membrane protects a cell, allowing waste products to leave its premises. But this time it seemed that his layer of protection had been penetrated, and stress had invaded and reproduced like a virus, doing the impossible to take over its host."


I allow myself to take real life examples and compare them to scientific terms. 


The past couple of weeks were very stressful, but in the end, this material will futerly help kids learn what osmosis and diffusion is, for example. 

Egg Lab

Introduction

Osmosis... One of the most difficult topics to understand in science class this year. Many of us in the class were confused how it worked and what it depended on to work and how it would affect a cell. Questions were rushing in our heads constantly and the answers would come in rather complex manners. Our teacher, Ms. Silva, introduced an experiment where we would learn how osmosis worked by utilizing an egg resembling a cell. We were given one goal; to see how osmosis worked in eggs submerged in different substances.

In the past few days in Science class, we were set into groups of three (more or less), in which I was put next to Allie and Arthur, and given the objective to analyze, observe and record data about two eggs being submerged in 80mL of a substance (being Alcohol, Corn Syrup, Distilled Water, Salt Water) and left there for 2 days so the substance could react with the egg. My group and I were assigned the ALCOHOL and SALT WATER (20%) substances. Before leaving the egg in the beaker with one of the 4 substances, we drowned the egg in a container with vinegar so it would dissolve the shell since the acid would slowly break down the calcium that composed the hard shell. This project was produced so we could get a notice how osmosis works; the egg would resemble a cell. The main objective was to see how the substance would affect the egg. For example, would the egg get smaller, harder, would it be softer, would the liquid amount increase or decrease? My prediction for the alcohol egg was that it would be bigger and heavier, since the alcohol would replace water and it weighs more. For the salt water I predicted that I would be larger and a lot softer than usual, since the salt water would take over the inside of the egg.

Processes:

In DAY ONE of the experiment, we measured the circumference and the mass of our eggs and later on put them inside the cups that contained 80mL of Alcohol and Salt Water. We left the eggs inside those cups until the following day.

In DAY TWO of the experiment, we took out the eggs, carefully so we wouldn’t pop the fragile skins, and analyzed the eggs once more. We took note of the texture, smell, appearance and made sure we had seen if the liquid volume increased or decreased. The egg soaked in alcohol already began smelling like alcohol itself, and it felt hard but not stone-like. We could drop it on the table and it could bounce 3 or 4 times. However, the salt water egg seemed to be almost like a clear plastic securing water inside it; in other words, it was unbelievably fragile and one single scrape of our nails could rupture the fragile skin around the yoke. It contained no particular smell. We wrapped everything up and returned the egg inside the cups and left them there for the next day.

On the last day, my team and I took the eggs out from the cups one last time, checked the circumference, mass and the amount of liquid left in the cups, and observed the changes in appearance and texture and smell. The alcohol egg was looking just like a naturally boiled egg but eating would not be the best choice; you could tell that by the strong stench of alcohol that it emitted. It was harder than the day before since the alcohol penetrated the “membrane” overtime. The salt water egg was as soft as a piece of chewed gum. My group and I could identify that the salt water had traveled inside the egg since it was increased in size and the liquid (salt water) that was inside the beaker reduced significantly. We later "dissected" these eggs, cutting into both of them and analyzing the outcome of having them stay inside a cup with either alcohol or salt water. The alcohol egg was looking exactly like a boiled egg, with the yoke being solid. But the smell of alcohol was greater than before. The salt water egg literally exploded as Arthur and I drove our knifes into it. The excessive water inside it caused it to become a watery mess as the yoke mixed with the salt water.

  

CONCLUSION

ALCOHOL EGG:

            The alcohol egg got smaller but lighter (from 14 cm to 16.5 cm and from 73g to 64g). This means that most of the water inside the egg escaped, decreasing its size, and a lot of alcohol, which is much heavier than water, got into it. The loss of liquid volume (from 80mL to 51mL) could be caused by the simple fact of evaporation. From what I’ve learned, alcohol evaporates quicker than water. Since we did not seal the tops of our beakers, most of the liquid could have been evaporated. The warm temperature could have caused this to happen faster. As to the appearance of a boiled egg, this could be caused by the strong acid alcohol contains, which led to chemical reactions that made the egg seem “boiled”. My prediction was completely wrong.

SALT WATER EGG:

            The salt water egg did the exact opposite; it got larger and heavier (from 13.5cm to 17.5cm and from 62g to 83g). Since there was no salt inside the egg, the salt water entered it freely and intensively. You could actually notice the amount of water inside the egg since it became transparent. The amount of liquid also decreased because of the same reason as the alcohol egg and because most of the liquid went into the egg. My prediction was right for this egg.

            Osmosis can be negatively affecting an organism. This could happen simply when we are at the pool or a blistering hot summer day and our hands become wrinkled, meaning we lost some water and are a bit dehydrated. This won’t bring much damage to us, but long hours in a sea can potentially dehydrate us. If we do not hydrate ourselves quickly, we can die of dehydration.

Evaluation

            The possible sources of error during the experiment are:

            - Evaporation of the liquids
            - Passing of liquids from beaker to cylinder
            -Wrong measurements

            To fix these errors we needed to be a bit more careful of what we were doing. For example, we could cover the lids of the each and every cup we held our eggs in. The passing of the liquids would be fixed by grabbing a spoon and forcing all the liquid down. He wrong measurements is a matter of lack of attention of focus.

            Working with this group was both well-balanced and a good experience. They are loyal and hard-working friends and I hope I have them as my next science group.

Egg and Osmosis (Class Project) Explanation

GREAT video that explains what we did in class and how it worked out.
*SUBSTANCE WAS SWEET SYRUP*

Eukaryotic x Prokaryotic

The Eukaryotic and the Prokaryotic cells differ in a variety of ways. Although Prokaryotes may be more protected since they must survive in hostile environments, the Eukaryotic is in fact more desenvolved in terms of organelles.

I would choose to be an Animal cell because I do not rely as much on solar energy or photosynthesis. I am able to transfer information inside myself through my DNA and Plasmids. Although the plant cell and the animal cell have much in common in termsof organelles, the animal cell contains the Cilia (which is used for movement), Lysosomes (which are responsible for digestion of wastes) and contain various small vacuoles.

Plant cells are effecient when it comes to self-feeding *by the chloroplast* and more protection *due to cell wall*, but there are some important aspects that are absent in its body.