It is well known that plants breathe in Carbon Dioxide and breath out Oxygen, but how does a seed grow and use energy before it is able to absorb energy from the sun to photosynthesize? It turns out that seeds produce energy the same way that we humans do before they sprout! They breath in Oxygen and exhale Carbon Dioxide. In order to prove this, we conducted a lab on pea seeds. We wanted to see if the seeds actually pulled in oxygen, we put peas into a container, then the but a plug to seal off the top of the container that had a long glass tuber coming out of it in order to see the distance that the oxygen pulled the water. The Carbon Dioxide was making it so that it was evenly pressurized so it would not pull or push the water through the tube, so we added a chemical called KOH which solidifies Carbon Dioxide to the bottom of the container while keeping this corrosive chemical away form the peas by putting a piece of non-absorbent cotton between the peas and the chemical. This made it so the oxygen would be inhaled by the plants while trapping the Carbon Dioxide at the bottom of the container therefore the oxygen could now enter without being counteracted on. Finally we put food coloring into the tip of the tube and submerged it in water to observe if the food coloring would be pulled in which would prove that seeds do breathe in oxygen.
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This final challenge I decided to try something completely new for the the catapult car this time around. I started with my car that I had originally used for the race. I also used the same catapult system that I used in the previous round. The difficulty was finding a new way to make it fire at the correct time and to go the correct distance. In order to achieve this I added another layer to the car and made it 2 levels. On top of the second level towards the front is where the catapult was placed. The car worked exactly the same as before but this time it would hit a little trip mechanism that would pull down a popsicle stick that was holding down the spoon. This worked because it did not release until the car had reached its full distance when the pencil completed it's rotation because it only set it off when it hit the very bottom. An issue that I encountered was that my car was not sturdy enough to support the 2 story structure on only 3 wheels. To solve this issue I added to extra wheels on either sides of the back axle. Another issue I encountered was that the car would not go far enough. I tried many different things from cutting off non-essential pieces of the car to adding string length. I was coming closer but never actually able to make it into the zone. This is one of my less successful projects because I was not able to even able to get it to the place that the catapult needed to launch from
Going into making this catapult I was much more knowledgeable and aware of what things I needed to do in order to successfully shoot the ping pong ball into the coffee can. First I hot glued the mouse trap to a base for stability and consistency. Then I attached a stopper right in front of the trap which allowed the trap to go to about a 90 degree angle. I tried to shoot that and it overshot by far. I added a slanted piece of wood which limited the range of motion to only about a 45 degree angle. Now I had the perfect arc and distance to make it into the bucket. Along the way I attached a metal back support to the back of the spoon which was attached to the catapult in order for added strength. For the final addition to my catapult I nailed in two pieces of metal on both sides at the top of the spoon so that I could slide a metal rod in which would hold down the spoon until I pulled it out and it released the spoon. This allowed for a more consistent release than if you were to just hold the trap down with your finger. All in all this was a successful catapult that made it in the bucket on the final challenge.
Calorimetry is the measurement of the energy exchanged. A calorie is actually a measurement of energy as I have had the opportunity to learn in this project. We did a series of tests on different foods to try and measure the amount of energy released from these specific foods. The way that we did this was by collecting multiple samples of cheezits, graham crackers, and tortilla chips and placed them each one at a time underneath a soda can that was filled with 50 ml of water. This can had a thermometer in it and then we burned the food with a lighter. In order to track the energy released by these foods we calculated the change in the temperature of the water, and the change in mass of food. We calculated the energy gained by the heated water by multiplying the mass of the water by the change in the temperature of water. Then we multiplied the energy gained in water by the change in the mass of food. In order to determine the final calorie count. There were many variables that made it impossible to find the exact calorie count. Some of these variables were, we did not have a contained flame so not all of the heat went straight to the can, sometimes we would have to relight the food because it would not burn consistently which would cause variation because sometimes we the can would receive energy from the lighter flame, and sometimes it would not receive all the energy because we would set the can down slightly after the food started burning. The final reason is because sometimes there would be extra gunk from previous flames on the bottom of the can which could change the weight of the can and also put extra distance from the flame. Here is an example of one of the tables that we did for the cheezits:
Calculate the change in the temperature of the water, Δt. 14.5 C Calculate the change in mass of cheese itz, Δm. .8 g Calculate the energy gained by the heated water. [(mass of water) X (Δt of water)] 698.03 J Use your answer in Step 4 to calculate the energy content of cheezits. [Energy gained by water / Δ mass of food] .55842 calories After all of this experimentation we learned how to mathematically calculate calorimetry with the equation q=mc∆t. The Q stands for the energy released, M stands for the mass of the food, C stands for the specific heat of the water which is 4.184j/g°c, and finally ∆t stands for the change in temperature of water. For example q= (800g) ( 4.184j/g°c) (80°c-10°c). In this equation we were trying to find the energy in joules (q) which we did by subtracting the original temperature from the temperature after the test in order to calculate the change in temperature. Then we multiply the mass which is 800 by the specific heat of water which is 4.184 by the change in temperature which is 70 in order to obtain the energy in joules which is 234,304 joules. I based my design off of my previous car. I thought that I would be able to perfect the desidn e making it lighter, more grippy wheels, placing spacers to prevent the wheels from grinding on the body, and finally lengthening the "motor".
I used CD's as wheels because they were large which means that it takes less times to rotate around the same distance. I used cardboard as the body because it is lightweight and solid. I made the car move by by using the mouse trap to pull a string connected to the axel which is tied on to a pencil used to extend the arm of the mousetrap therefore distributing the energy. The issue that I ran into was that my car was not going far enough. The thing that I did to resolve this issue is I made the arm of the mouse trap longer and also increased the size of the axel by wrapping it in tape which made it possible to generate more power. The one other that i ran into was that the force of the mouse trap was ripping the mouse trap itself apart. I solved this by hot gluing the pins that hold it down. My car ran staright becuase when I was attaching the wheels to the axels I made especially sure that the wheels were perfectly straight. This year has been a very productive and efficent year so far. With the new bolt and inquiry block opprotunities I have been able to further my knowledge like never before. In this semester I have been able to attend 2 seasons of serial, expand my knowledge of archetypal tragedies and of the american literature, and learn so many things about science and how this world really works.
I have built a long board where I was able to learn some art of sculptury and scaling and I was percicely carving the curviature of the wood so I got to work on some math in that too. Another one of the very fun and educational things that I have been able to do in my time here is to learn about and build an aquaponic system. For chemistry I have gotten to do flame testing and also work on calories and learn better how they work. Every time we would get the chance we would go into the science room and burn different types of food and see their change in weight and change in temperature in order to calculate the calories. This has been an amazing year and here in mosaic I have had oppritunities that never would have been possible in normal schooling. This catapult mouse trap car was much harder and took a lot more work than either of the other trials. One thing that did make this easier though, is that we already had created an efficient car and also an efficient catapult. We cut down the mouse trap that we originally used for the catapult to make it more space efficient when we mounted it on the car. We mounted it so that there was a little space between the trap and the catapult. We shortened the string so that it would stop in the 2-3 meter mark then shoot in that space into a box o few meters away. We made it shoot when it finished moving by having a pivoting mechanism so that when the trap pulled the wheels the full distance, it would hit this piece of pivoting metal to push it off the spoon which would release the ping pong ball into the box. This little pivoting piece was the life of our car that made it possible for it to actually launch at the perfect time which was when the mouse trap had reached its final destination. We had to bake a ping pong ball into a box in three trials for our final test. The first two we were very close but barley missed. On a 3rd attempt we told her that it was a practice trial and we made it perfectly in the bucket and I was so dissapointed! Finally we were at our final trial. This was when we made it on the trial test and it was most important.
Recently for the mouse trap bolt, we started making a mouse trap catapult. We went through many different trials to get a somewhat succesful and consistent result. We started by gluing the mousetrap to a larger piece of wood. Then we put a stopper right in front of the trap so that it had a better arch. We taped a spoon onto the trap and we were continually snapped it, which lead us to put a metal back plating on the spoon which eliminated that issue. To increase consistensy in the shot, we put a piece of wood on both sides of the trap. There were holes in this wood in order for us to stick a rod through to hold down the spoon then pull it out to fire it. In the end this did not help with consistency because the release still depended on the way we pulled it out. We went back to just pulling the spoon bac with our fingers then quickly releasing. We did not make it into the bucket which was the challenge for this activity. We had three trials to officially do so. We made it in many other times but did not make it into the bucket when it really counted.
I came up with the design by using previous knowledge and seeing other mouse trap cars. Our original plan shifted a little over time while trying to find the appropriate supplies that we thought would work best. We cut two pieces of wood and put them side by side and drilled holes for the axle. Then we uses the inside of the spinner of a bike tire and attached CD's to each side then planted the mouse trap on top
Workout Supplements: I began working on creating a business that is a power lifting supplement brand that specifies in gaining muscle mass and strength. The reason that I have started creating this business is because I didn't feel like there was a lifting supplement that fulfilled my personal needs to gain mass. I decided to start making a protein shake that had more ability and more mass amounts of carbs, calories, and protein with numbers that blow all the other mass gainers out of the water. I also in the process of making a pre-workout that has more beneficial supplements in it than even the leading pre-workouts on the market today... not only to meet my own personal needs, but also to provide the means for anyone looking to get bigger and stronger, no matter how physically capable they are at the moment.
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