Physics is taught through a mixture of lectures (to learn concepts) and labs (to see these concepts applied in the real world). It is taught by Ms. Chase. So far, we have covered units including kinematics, dynamics, energy and momentum, and circular motion.
During the kinematics unit, we received a multi-step problem that required the application of various concepts that we learned throughout the unit, including 1D motion, both constant and accelerating, and 2D motion, more specifically projectiles. Though I made a calculation error while solving that impacted my final answer, I thought it was fun to work through this problem by splitting it into three different phases and adding together the rocket's displacement in the different sections. Click here to view the PDF in a new tab.
During the dynamics unit, we designed our own physics labs to verify the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration described in Newton's Second Law. My group used a modified Atwood's machine comprised of two ramps tilted 5° up to meet at a point, where we placed a pulley. On the ramps, we placed two identical carts connected by string and altered the weights we placed on the carts so that the overall mass of the carts combined stayed constant. We measured the acceleration of the carts with different numbers of weights placed on them and graphed the collected accelerations against the sum of the horizontal forces. Click here to view the PDF in a new tab.