During the celebration, I felt like I didn’t understand the last few questions enough. I knew how to do them, but in the moment of answering them I couldn’t think of what to do, and the answers were so simple when I realized what they were. I learned how to do them correctly after looking over them with classmates, and wrote down the steps to solve the questions. I think I just need to pay more attention to what the question is asking and think carefully on what to do, so that way I can do things properly the next time.

Usually, I shorten up the definitions of different terms I learn while understanding the deeper meaning of the word. Distance for me is the total amount of space an object moves in between the reference point and another point. Displacement is just the definition we learned in class; change in position. Position is the amount of space in between the reference point and where the object is in relation to the reference point. Speed is how fast something is moving, and velocity is the same thing except with direction. These would be what I would tell another classmate with some real life examples.

We recently (and I mean last week) did a project in which our whole class had to make a Rube Goldberg machine that could make a balloon pop. Well, let’s just say that not everything was successful, but at least it was fun watching everyone’s contraptions come together to do something. The failures that we had were kind of frustrating, but at the same time we tried to improve it over and over again. At one point, I just felt like giving up on it, but by the end, I felt kind of guilty by thinking that. Everything we’ve done to perfect that part was not successful, no matter how many times we adjusted it. I may have been able to participate more if I had not given up on it.

Now, about energy. I feel that understanding what energy is present and how that energy occurs is simplified in a “dummy’s understanding” way to me.  Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’ve simplified everything to this; gravitational energy is affected when the object is closer or farther away from the Earth, kinetic energy is when something is moving, elastic energy is when something is stretched from its original form, and internal is other types of energy not easily transferred. I have yet to come to a sound definition on what gravitational energy actually is, but I’m still getting there.

I feel more confident in my understanding of energy and I really loved the Rube Goldberg activity. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch about five or ten of these on YouTube.

Failure is a necessary part of achieving what we want or need to achieve since we can reflect on our mistakes and build off of what we have learned to create a new change. I have failed in drawing my art multiple times, always erasing and re-sketching. Even when I outline I make mistakes. I just learned to create something new out of what I’ve done to make it more satisfying for me. This is not only true for my drawings, but for my academic homework. If I make a mistake, I look it over and try to solve it again even if I do not have a chance to turn it in again.

When i draw and make those mistakes, however, even though I try to improve on it, I still think to myself “why did I do that?” Or “I should’ve made it better.” This is because I always want to prove to myself that my drawings need to be good and live up to their expectations, and if they’re aren’t, then they are not really good. I think this is why we always look at our mistakes negatively; it is something we have failed to do, and our prideful self wants it to be perfect on our first try.

Fear of failing keeps me from trying again, knowing that I still won’t be good enough even if i do it another time. However, this is not entirely true. I should always be humble about my mistakes Andy i should never have to think of them as being bad, because you know what? I may never be perfect at something! I should just do the best I can and learn from what I have done! Failure should never be an obstacle.

In the basketball discussion, we talked about how the basketball had a few types of energy; kinetic, gravitational, internal or sound, and elastic. See how I did not use the ‘p’ word? Anyways, we proved that elastic was evident since the ball compressed when it hit the ground, and sound was evident because we could hear it. And gravitational and kinetic energy are basic. However, I’m having doubts on how much of that energy is presented in the ball. Sure, at point A there was a huge amount of gravitational energy, but there’s also at point C. Even if we’re talking about the point where it touches the ground, would it really just all be gravitational energy since it comes to a complete stop at some point? Energy is a complicated thing to work with since we can’t really visualize it easily, especially internal, gravitational, and kinetic, but they all seem so simple. I don’t have a lot of questions on the matter, but this gave me a good idea on how energy works.

In the past, I’ve had multiple times where I had a fixed mindset, especially when people praised me in school work or out-of-school activities. However, I still strived to challenge myself with harder work and activities during half of that praise, sub-consciously wanting to impress those around me even more.

To expand my growth mindset, I could always record the activities that I do, whether it’s academic or not, and see how I can improve myself further in that specific area. This would help me in areas that I am not interested in or am struggling in.

Each idea presented in class are different ways of remaking what was inside the magic tubes, and some even match the description of our observations, but we would never know if that was what truly made up the formation of strings. We can never really know either because we cannot compare the insides of the real magic tubes to our own. It doesn’t really matter in the long run because, whether it’s our own idea or our teacher’s, it would still function the same way with the same results! Personally, though, I think the idea of what’s inside these tubes make our imagination going and help us to learn and go in depth on what we ourselves think.

 

 

So, hey welcome to whoever finds this blog! I hope I can produce quality content for my class and improve!