9/1 Clyde

Today we turned in our What is a Radian? lab that we had on page 5 of our lab manuals, also returning any protractors we borrowed. Once we’d done that, everyone had to set up their books and binders in a line in the middle of the table so that nobody could see what was going on on the other side of the table. We then received the mysterious ‘Ye Ole Treasure Map’, with a picture of a pirate ship in one corner and a treasure chest in the other. Half of each table received blank maps with just these, while the other half had complete maps, which showed all of the dangers awaiting us in the sea, and the only safe path to get to the treasure! The students with complete maps then used rulers and protractors to attempt to lead the students with blank maps to the treasure chest at the end without being blown to smithereens by running into a mine, being eaten by running into a shark, or peeking at the answers. After completing this dangerous task, luckily with no severe injuries or deaths (because no one is allowed to die in physics), Brian’s team was successfully able to reach the end of the puzzle before the rest of the class and received the priceless booty inside... candy.

As those two ate their newly-won Dum Dums, the class transitioned into a new activity, a POGIL. We were assigned specific roles to play as we worked on the POGIL packet about vectors. Most groups got through the first page before we wrapped up class and left.

In the way of homework, we were assigned Page 7 of our lab manuals,  Measuring Vectors. While the page in the manual gives an example for what we should use as a scale, it’s not advised that you use said scale, unless you’d like to tape together 9 meters’ worth of paper just to finish number four. 1/10mm = 1km would be the recommended scale. You know, unless you wanted to do that 9 meters of paper thing.

QOD:

The information needed to accurately describe a vector would be the angle, the length of the line (or magnitude), and the reference line. This last bit was what got most of us on Ye Ole Treasure Map, as several of us were measuring on the opposite side of the reference line as those guiding us, and ending up going in all the wrong directions. However, having all three pieces of information would allow someone to successfully replicate a vector.