1. Given the challenge and the performance of your car on Test Drive #1, what change(s) did you make for Test Drive #2? We made our back part of our “car” bigger because the more mass it has the more kinetic energy it takes with it.
2. What differences did you predict these changes would make in your car’s performance? What makes you think this? We predicted this would make our car much faster and it would go farther.
3. Think about the variables such as the size of the spool, weight of the washer or tension of the rubber band. How might these affect how far or how fast your car will go? The more mass, the more kinetic energy the vehicle has. We also extended our rubber band which made our car have more elastic energy.
4. What worked better the second time? Our entire car worked better the second time seeing as it went farther and faster.
5. What still is not quite working? We still weren’t able to get the car to roll much after its first impact with the ground. It did more sliding than rolling.
6. What questions do I have? How is it possible to make this vehicle better?
7. What might I try next? I think I would try and minimize the Duct Tape so as to increase the rollability of the vehicle.
8. Explain the energy transfer that is taking place in the racer. The racer starts with a bunch of elastic energy and as it’s used up it’s being converted to kinetic energy and using the kinetic energy to slide on the ground.

1. What do you like about your initial design? I really like the fact that it works and moves in the intended direction. That’s a far cry from many of the other groups.
2. What has been challenging about the initial design? Just figuring out how we were going to power it and get it to move with just rubber bands.
3. How well did your racer perform in the first race? Did it go far? Fast? In the first race, our racer went both the fastest and farthest out of all legal vehicles.
4. How will you modify your design for the second race? Why? Not sure yet. I’m still thinking about how we can make our design more effective. I think I just have to look at the independent variables and see what we can modify.
5. What have been your strengths and challenges during the design process? Our strengths have been coming up with ideas. We have never really been at a loss for what to do. Our challenges have been committing to one idea.
6. What questions do you have? How can we make our design better?

Video of our actual egg drop

Describe your prototype design.

Our design is a tiny little box with an egg in it, inside of a slightly bigger box with packing paper, inside of a much larger box with lots of packing paper. And duct tape. Lots of duct tape.

How does your prototype protect the egg?

It protects the egg by using the packing paper as cushioner and just not giving the egg any space to gain momentum and break.

Describe your design process, in detail. 

On our first building day, we made the big box, filled it with packing paper, and put the egg inside. This was actually done in 2 days. We tested this several times and it worked every single one of them. We were then challenged by Gev. Jirovetz to make ours smaller. We did this by getting a square tissue box, filling it with packing paper, and putting the egg inside. Once again, it worked. We then tried to make it even smaller by using a 2cmx2cm cardboard box. To say the least, this box did not work as well. We then experimented with putting all the designs together and got our current design.

Do you think the temperature of the room affects the time it takes an odor to get to your nose? Explain your answer. Provide two pieces of scientific reasoning to explain why.

No, I don’t think so. Odor travels by molecules in the air. Unless somehow the temperature molecules block them, I don’t see how it would affect anything. The other reason I think the temperature wouldn’t affect how long it takes an odor to travel through the air is that when I go to the beach on a hot summer day, usually you can still smell a barbecue going on outside.

Sea Lamprey CER

The Sea Lamprey definitely caused a decline in the trout population. The text in our science binders states that the trout is the sea lamprey’s prey. We also looked at a chart of the populations of sea lamprey and trout in the great lakes. While the trout went steadily downwards (from 200 to nearly 0), the sea lamprey dramatically spiked up (from 0 to 300). Also, on the great lakes food web that our class created, the sea lamprey was eating the trout. There was also nothing eating the sea lamprey. This means that when the sea lamprey invaded the great lakes they just started eating everything else (including the trout) and didn’t get eaten themselves because since they were at the top of the food chain there were no predators above them. Without predators, they ate a lot of trout.

According to a fisherman, when farmers started catching fish in the 1960s, the fish all had a hole in the side of them with blood coming out. The way the sea lamprey gets food is by attaching to the side of a fish and sucking out the blood. They use their teeth to grab on to the fish and make a hole to suck the blood out of. This would line up perfectly with what the farmers would say they’re catching. This proves that the sea lamprey are sucking blood from the trout and killing them that way so the trout population decreased with a new deathly predator.

Another reason the sea lamprey caused a decline in the trout population is that when sea lamprey lay eggs, they lay about 80,000. When trout lay eggs, they lay about 800. If the trout laid more eggs than the sea lamprey, there is a possibility the sea lamprey’s population would not be large enough to wipe out the trout, but because the sea lamprey lay more eggs, their population would very quickly outnumber the trout’s. Therefore, the trout are unable to outnumber the sea lamprey and make it so the sea lamprey can’t eat all of the trout.

All of this evidence proves that the sea lamprey caused a decline in the trout population.

• What is the value of dissecting?

Dissecting helps you see things that pictures can’t tell you. They might not be things you want to see, but helpful nonetheless. Also, you know how those pictures got taken. Someone had to dissect a fish to get those pictures. Humans wouldn’t know anything about the insides of fishes if they didn’t dissect.

• How did the dissection help you understand what is happening between the sea lamprey and the trout?

It explained just how the sea lamprey is killing the trout and what an exchange between the 2 species might have looked like. Before the sea lamprey was a 2-inch picture in the corner of our page. Now, it’s a real fish to us. 

• How did you feel about dissection? If you enjoyed the process, why did you enjoy it? If you did not enjoy it, what was difficult about it?

Dissection for the perch was not bad at all until some kids started taking out the eyes from the fish and squeezing them. It was actually kind of fun. We got to cut open a fish and look at the insides it was kind of cool. The sea lamprey was a different story. I had trouble just touching it. I mean, just look at it. How can you really blame me? Although I actually did stay in the room (about half left), it was pretty disgusting. I didn’t actually dissect it (Gev. Mcadams did) but I did look inside of it.

What do you think invasive species means?

A species that invades other ecosystems.

What does it mean to invade something?

Move into their territory.

Can animals invade?

Yes. They can just move to another animals area. Like if your dog started sleeping on your bed.

What about plants?

Probably if their roots end up twisting enough they can maybe overlap with other roots.

How might invasive species affect other organisms in their environment?

They might make them have less shelter.

Today in science we tested a bean seed and a potato for starch to answer the question, “Do plants contain the food that organisms need?” Below, is my scientific explanation that explains what we learned and discovered from our lab today.

Image of lab:

Claim:
Plants contain the food that organisms need.

Evidence:
If you ever eat anything other than a plant what you ate somehow got its energy from plants. We tested potatoes and seeds for starch using iodine and the potato did have starch and the seed didn’t.

Reasoning:

I know that the potato is a plant that other organisms need because it has starch.

• Potential energy (stored energy)
• Kinetic energy (energy of motion)
• Conservation of energy (basic law of physics)
• Gravity- The driving force that brings things back to Earth.
• Velocity- The speed something is going at.
• Friction-  When one object finds resistance pushing against another object.
• Slope (rise/run)

Summary of my project: Starting from a high place, steep drop, one loop.

Today was the 4th day of our rubber band boat. If you’re confused about where day 3 is, the reason I didn’t do a post was because day 3 was for finishing up our boats and my boat was already finished. Today we tested our boat and it worked. But we had already tested it before so we knew it worked.