Scientist Wanted: Shirley Ann Jackson - Weekly Blog #21

www.bizjournals.com

Summary 

This week in science, I learned about world influencing scientist Shirley Ann Jackson. Shirley Ann Jackson is a physicist that studied subatomic particles at numerous physics labs. She was awarded the very first national medal in science, and also became the president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The national medal of science is an honorary award that is given to those who excel in a certain field of science by the president of the United States. She is know well for and praised for being the first women of African american decent to earn a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This is what I learned about this week.

S&EP - Communicating Information

This week, I was able to communicate information through the presentation of things that I learned about Shirley Ann Jackson. First, I had to gather all my information by doing research on who Shirley is. Then. I had to dig deeper and find out her family history, Where she earned her degree, and what she studied in. After all this, I was able to communicate my finding to the rest of the class via Flip-grid. With this E-tool, I was able to talk to others about who my scientist was and why they were important. I also was able to learn about other peoples scientists and reply to their videos.

XCC - Cause and Effect

When researching Shirley Ann Jackson, I discovered that she had to struggle with a lot of social problems that developed during her time and that she had to endure a lot to become an intellectual. Because of the way that people treated her, it caused her to persevere and become smarter and better than anyone of thought she could just because of the color of her skin as well as her gender. This shows a cause and effect relationship due to them being correlated in this way. Also, because she put it in the hard work into her studies she was able to be rewarded from it and helps set an example for the rest of the world.

Our Solar System - Weekly Blog #20

http://www.astronomytrek.com/solar-system

Summary 

This week in science, I learned about our solar system. I learned alot about galaxies, stars, and other objects of the solar system. We live a galaxy called the "Milky Way" that is called an spiral galaxy. The different types of galaxies are elliptical, spiral, and irregular galaxies. Each of these galaxies are unique are in their own ways, and each have distinct features that keep them different in this way. In order for a star to form, they have to go through a process called nuclear fusion. In this process, Hydrogen is ionized (electrons stripped from the protons) into subatomic particles and then put under immense heat and pressure. After this they are fused together into helium because of this process.

S&EP - Analyzing Data

I recognized patterns in data and see relationships between variables. For example, I observed that the father away from the sun, the greater the planet's period of revolution. This is just one of the many observations I concluded from analyzing the data that was given to us through the formatives. Some other things that I noticed when researching information surrounding the topic was that some of the closer planets to the sun tend to have rock surfaces and are warmer. They have more earth like feature just taking off of this factor alone, distance from the sun. Another thing that is affected by her closeness to the sun is the planets gravity, in which those closer to the sun experience similar gravity to earth.

XCC - Patterns 

As shown above, there seemed, to me at least, that there is some sort of pattern that was connected a planet's distance from the sun and similarities to earth. All planets that tended to be closer in general to the sun have rocky surfaces, gravity like that which earth has, similar day/year lengths, and other distinguishable features that we would find here on earth. I also found that there are patterns in how each galaxy is shaped and they all fall under the previously mentioned galaxy type category. Depending on how prevalent these patterns are, we can collect information from it and learn more about our solar system, and even others, from it.

How Stress Affects Your Mind: Weekly Blog #19

http://www.cfbuzz.org

Summary

This week in science, I learned about how stress can affect your mind, as well as how to deal with stress. There are different types of stress that can occur in your body. The stress that is most frequent and normal is the fight or flight type stress. This type of stress can help you

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Building My Own Instrument: Project Blog

Our instrument displayed beautifully by Riccardo

Summary

This week in science, I put my knowledge of  waves and sound to the test by being given the task of creating an instrument. Through this project, i was able to learn about how PVC pipes can be used to create distinct sounds at different pitches through vibrations in the air columns. We took this concept and adapted to to create a PVC base flute. The initial vibration of our instrument occurs in the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece was angled in a way that allowed it to resonate through the tube. In order to create different notes in the flute we had to have precise measurements in making different notes. Through this process, I  was able to further learn about how sound is created and the differences between them.

Backward-Looking - What process did you go through to produce this piece?

In order to create this product we first had to get an 8 feet PVC Pipe. We then proceeded to cutting down 33 Inch off main pipe. After this, we saved 4 inch of the main pipe to create a mouthpiece. After this, it was time to drill in the holed for playing different notes. We did this by measuring the diameter of holes, calculating the distance from open end the holes,  aligning the holes with the help of a ruler, and finally drilling the actual holes into the pipe. After this we had to create the mouth piece by cutting a ⅜  hole, and shave sides to be angled so that it can resonate. We then proceeded to put together the instrument and secure it with duck tape.

Inward -Looking - What did/do you find frustrating about it?

Initially with creating this product, we found it very frustrating to actually get our steady sound going. This was particularly frustrating because we had to go through a lot of trial and error in order to achieve a successful mouthpiece. Initially, we though that we did something wrong with constructing the mouth piece. It was looking to be as if no sound would come through our instrument. As time went on, we realize that the problem was with the way that we were setting our embrasure on the instrument. We had to blow into the hole a certain way in order to produce sound. It took as a while to figure out but eventually we got it.

Outward -Looking - Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar?

The way that we created our instrument was pretty unique group. We saw that only 1 group had a wind instrument like ours, and was created in a totally separate way with different materials. We were however, among the groups that used PVC pipes to create our instrument. Because PVC is such a solid material, it makes sense why so many groups would use it as their main material. Through PVC pipes, the majority of the groups were able to create their instrument and successfully use the material to their advantage.

Forward -Looking -What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?

If I were to do this project over again, I would most certainly change the way that the instrument looks. I believe that we could have made our instrument look way more aesthetically pleasing then what it looks like right now. Another thing that I would do over if I had the chance to is creating more in tune notes, as well as a better way for the mouthpiece to resonate. Because of the way that we created our mouthpiece, we couldn't get very solid and in tune notes except for a few so that is definitely something I would do over again.

Making common Items into Instruments?: Weekly Blog #18

http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org

Summary

This week in science, I learned about how different items can resonate in different ways. Through vibrations, sound is created in different frequency's and pitch. This week, I learned about how PVC pipes can be used to create musical sounds. In order to decide how we were going to go about creating a wind instrument, we had to look the fundamentals of how a normal one works. Wing instruments work by have a mouth piece blown into at a certain angle. This creates a vibration that resonates through the instruments body. This than can create a sound that can be varied by pressing down different keys that will cover different holes. depending on the different lengths and spaces between holes, different pitches can be made. 

S&EP - Using Math

I expressed relationships between variables by writing mathematical models or equations. For example, I used an equation for trying to figure out where certain notes would have to be in relativity to each other. Using an actual mathematical formula, we were able to figure out where we would need to drill the holes in the pipe for creating specific notes. Using the formula, it was able to guide us in creating our prototype and figuring how the different pitches were made.

XCC - Scale, Proportion, and Quantity

When mapping out how big the holes for the different notes would be, we had to scale the sizing on in. to cm, as well as translate all of our data into a proportion suitable for our pipe. If we were to put our calculations onto a much larger or smaller scale, we would have to accommodate for the size of the holes and the spacing. This is due to the bigger the instrument being, the lower the pitch and vice versa. 

Digital waves: Weekly Blog #18

www.quora.com

Summary

This week in science, I learned about sampling rates from analog to digital waves. When an analog wave is processed by a computer and converted in a digital wave. This is processed through a certain bit-rate that decides how often the analog wave is sampled. The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality/ preciseness. This comes at a cost though. Because the bit-rate is being more and more accurate, it does cause it to be a larger file size. This takes up more space on digital media storage. There is also quite a difference between analog and digital waves. Analog waves are the direct rendition on the original sound, and when transformed in digital waves, they lose some of that original quality. This is mainly due to it being converted to a format that works off of a set rate that it collects data from the original sample from. This is what I learned this week in science.

S&EP - Using Models

In order to describe what it would be like to transform analog waves into digital waves, we took examples from slinkys. Using the slinkys, we were able to simulate what it was like when analog waves were transformed into digital waves.

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