Physics is taught by Mrs. Chase, who is one of my homeroom teachers. Although I came into Mass Academy a little intimidated by physics, it has been really fun so far! Some of the topics we have covered include kinematics, the study of motion; dynamics, the study of force; and energy and momentum. This class uses both algebra and calculus concepts, but we don't need to have prior calculus experience - for example, I knew no calculus before coming here. We cover the basics of integrals and derivatives in August, and then we are encouraged to work at our own level with the calculus included in each unit. Mrs. Chase challenges us to step outside our comfort zones in this class, but is also very supportive and always willing to help us with any concepts we don't get. A fun bit of Mass Academy lore is that Mrs. Chase also runs the knitting and crocheting club, so this means that often, students learn to knit or crochet in the same room they learn to do (basic) calculus.
This was our second lab of the year. After we had finished our unit on dynamics, the study of forces, we had a lab to study some of these concepts. For this lab, we worked in groups to design our own lab with the materials we had available. I worked with Sohini and Vyshnavi to collect the data for this lab. We decided to use a modified Atwood's machine with two connected carts to explore what we had learned. Although we worked in groups, our lab writeups were finished individually. You can find mine here.
When we did this assignment, we were working on our study of kinematics. This problem integrated one-dimensional motion, vectors, and projectile motion, and allowed us to put our skills into practice. I found this problem really fun to work on! We all recieved the same basic description of a rocket, but each of us had different numbers to start with and a different final answer. You can find my solution here.