ASayasone

I remember being brought to the batting cages a couple times over the summer when I was younger. Not being interested in baseball at all, and still not being that interested, it was still a fun experience. In a batting cage, it's yourself, a bat, and this machine which shoots baseballs. The entire purpose is for you to try and hit the baseball, and there's net surrounding you so the baseball doesn't escape once you've hit it. So at a batting cage, there's a bunch of physics, such as how the baseball will travel towards you at a certain velocity, and then you'll swing the bat at a certain velocity with a certain force, and if you've aimed correctly, both the bat and baseball will come in contact and apply a force onto each other. After that, the ball travels in the opposite direction which it had been thrown at. If you had wanted to find its velocity for whatever reason, you could have someone time when the ball had been hit, and the time it stayed in the air and finally hit the ground, already knowing the acceleration, and measuring the distance, you'd use an equation such as vf=vi+at or vf^2=vi^2+2ad. One thing I learned from the experience is that you should also wear gloves because the force from the ball can hurt your hand after you've hit it, this being because of friction between the bat and your hands.

Over the Summer I worked at Seabreeze as a rides operator. Being a rides operator means that I have to push buttons, deal with kids, parents, and hot weather. But there was also a lot of physics seen around the entire park, for example, there was always kids running around. Small children are quick, but most of the time it's the ones who aren't so great at keeping their balance that end up getting some help from gravity and fall straight forward. As for me, I was only allowed to operate the kiddie rides, being under 18, and one ride in particular was the Bear Trax, a kiddie roller coaster which small children or, with the exception, parents who were with children who fit the requirements could also ride as well. This ride in particular was one that went up a down-sized hill compared to the Jack Rabbit, and it'd build up its momentum with the help of the gears on the bottom of the track to pull it up. But when it gets to the top, there aren't any gears to pull it along till it gets back to where it started, so from there it's up to lack of friction and then there's an increase in velocity which sends the riders down laughing and smiling (most of the time). And at the top of the hill, there's a bunch of potential energy, and as it's going down, that potential energy will become kinetic. Thankfully the rollercoaster is enough to satisfy little kids without being too overwhelming with large hills, because larger hills means greater potential and kinetic energy, and that could lead to scared, crying children.

Playing paintball is fun, although it's painful and leaves you with a bunch of bruises, there's also a lot of physics seen in the activity. If you've ever gone, you probably was put into an area with a bunch of other people, hopefully armored and protected with masks so you don't get accidentally shot in the face because the paint balls are moving at fast velocities once shot from the paintball gun with the help of a CO2 tank. The way the paintball gun works is, the tank filled with CO2 will apply pressure on the paintball, once the triggers pulled, it releases the paintball sending it towards the opponent it was aimed towards. Being a first timer, my aim was especially a little off, and that made me an easy target. Luckily I'm great a hiding, so all the dirty work was done by everyone else most of the time. But going back to the paint balls, each time they're fired, it's not going to have the same trajectory at which they fire, this either being the angle you're holding the paintball gun, or just because each paintball isn't exactly the same. It's not a perfect sphere, and there will be occasional imperfections with them that can cause a change in distance and the velocity. And because of gravity, all of the paintball's which were able to survive colliding into any person or surface and popping would end up on the ground. Paintball's a great activity to go out and do with family and friends, but beware of those small paintball's because even though they're just little balls of paint, they can cause a great amount of damage.

Around Winter, and especially when it's near the holiday's, I'll want to do some winter activities such as ice skating or sledding. But I had gone ice skating over the 2 week break with a couple of friends, and it was pretty amusing seeing a bunch of teenagers get "out-skated" by some children who were half our age. But during the time we had skated, we all had different velocities, some of us had large velocities, others had small. And when it comes to skating, if you've never gone before, there's going to be a little difficulty due to the fact that your ice skates and when it comes in contact with the ice, there will be little friction. And if you're a teenager who hasn't done it in a while, you'll find yourself either hanging onto the sides, or needing a walker to help you skate along. There was an incident when a someone was skating, and they had fell because they weren't able to control themselves on the skates. She was moving at a very slow velocity, barely accelerating unless she had someone more skilled to pull her along, and not knowing how to apply a force on the skate to stop herself from going out of control, she slipped and fell onto the ice. Now there would also be a force applied when she fell, but another reason she had fell was because her legs were stick straight, therefore she wasn't balanced; as you gain speed, you should be bending your knees. It was a fun experience to have with my friends, especially since I got to see some slips here and there, and see a kid comment on my friend having to use a walker to help her skate.

Since I was taught that Physics can be related to everything, I thought I'd relate it to the hockey game I watched at R.I.T. Regarding the physics in hockey, the hockey players skated on ice, and as they're skating, there's very little friction between the ice and the hockey skates. That's a positive due to the fact that they're able to move so quickly in order to get around their opponents. But when they're moving so quickly, it's also a negative because there's walls which surround the skate rink to separate the audience and players, and sometimes the players will crash into it. And if they're going quick, it's going to hurt, because the force they're applying to the wall will apply the same amount of force back into the person. As for the puck, the players are applying a great force, hitting it with the hockey stick, and sending the puck into the air at times at great speed depending on how hard it was hit. But going back to the ice and hockey skates, there were occasional falls here and by members on both teams, this relating back to the fact that there's little friction, so it gets difficult if you lose your control. It was a great experience though, there were other things that had happened during the game; two players would get upset, one would push the other while applying a force, and gravity would come into play and help to pull the player who was pushed into the ground. But good news, the Tigers won the game 3-2!!

When I was a kid, I went crazy whenever I heard about ice cream. It was my favorite thing in the world, any flavor, it didn't matter. It was a hot day and I was bike riding with some of my family members. I started at an initial velocity of zero and it would increase as I started to pedal, my distance also increasing as we rode around the neighborhood. But then I heard a delightful little jingle and my little self had recognized that it was the ice cream truck. Once I had heard that sound, I accelerated and my velocity had shot up significantly because I was trying to catch up with it. The physics involved is that the bike kept going, I wasn't applying any force to the brakes to keep it from stopping, and since the street I was going down was slightly slanted, I would be increasing in velocity without having to do anything. Luckily I didn't fly off my bike, the velocity which I was traveling would've created a lot of pain, gravity pulling me down at 9.81 m/s^2, and since I was going down a street that was slightly slanted, I would be traveling a certain distance. My journey trying to catch up with the ice cream truck wasn't successful though, its velocity being way faster than mine, being able to travel a greater distance in a shorter amount of time. But looking back, I think the ice cream truck driver was purposely increasing his velocity because I remember shouting after him.

Gym class means that at one point, depending on who your teacher is and what units they're teaching, you're probably going to have to climb the rock wall located in the field house. You look at it and it doesn't look too bad, telling yourself that you can reach the top and it won't be a big deal. But first, in order to get to the field house, there's going to be some Physics involved. Depending on your velocity, that will vary how long it takes you to get to the field house: the faster you walk, the less time you'll take to get there, and that means the more time you'll get during class to climb. The physics involved with rock climbing is, you're going to have some tension pulling on you, for example, there's a rope with 2 ends, one which is attached to this belt that you wear, the other attached to another person which will have other people backing them up in order to support your weight as you make it up the wall. It's a pulley system that's used, and as you go up the wall, the people on the other end will be taking steps back. When you're done, you let go of all the rocks, and gravity wants to come into play, and if you weren't connected to anything, you'd fall right onto the ground probably breaking a lot of things: including yourself. But since there are other people attached to the other end of the rope, they're there to bring you down slowly from the wall, and your velocity will depend on how slow or fast they walk in. Rock wall climbing is fun if you're not afraid of heights, but remember to not look down if you make it all the way to the top of the wall.

Everyone gets hungry. I had a friend over, and we needed something to eat because we're only human. Not in the mood to spend time making a full out dinner, we decided to make a box of macaroni. But, before we could even get the pasta into the boiling water, my friend had accidentally knocked over the box, and all of the pasta had fallen onto the ground. The physics in this is that the pasta had fallen at an acceleration of 9.81 m/s^2 down. Obviously there was more than one piece of pasta, but when they all fall out of the box, they did all fall from the counter down to the ground, falling the same distance vertically. But there were pasta which had bounced, and landed a different distance from the counter. The initial velocity being 0 till the force of my friend had knocked the box which led to the spilling of the macaroni. In the end we didn't get to eat macaroni so we ended up calling up a place for some Chinese food. This also dealing with physics, for the person delivering the food would be traveling by car at a certain horizontal velocity for a certain distance, and this would take them a certain amount of time. But the point is that we got to eat, so it was a good day in the end.

So one time I was watching a movie, and in the movie there was this little rat that was controlling this man who was making food. The physics in that is, the rat is applying a force on the man, tugging on his hair in order to control his arm movements. Both have gravity pulling them down so the man is standing on the ground, and the rat is standing on top of the man's head. Also the rat standing on the man's head would've applied another force as well. As the movie continued, it would be seen how Linguini (the man) is rollerblading around the restaurant in order to serve the food. The physics in this is that he's able to move around quicker since there's less friction with the wheels on the ground rather than himself just walking. With less friction, it's easier to slide, but he can also stop himself from moving by applying enough force in the opposite direction to make stop his movement. But the overall point is that Ratatouille is a cute movie and you should just watch it, not just because of the physics, but you get to see a genius rat cook.

Free food is the best kind of food, Natalie

Very interesting

A few of my interests are taking pictures of scenery or something totally different like baking. I'm interested in photography because a picture can be of anything. As for baking, it's just fun since you're mixing a bunch of things together and decorating it after. I see myself doing these things for as long as I live, even though it's not something I'd do professionally, it's something I'd spend free time on. The reason why I'm taking physics is because I thought it'd be a class I'd actually enjoy. From what counselors and teachers said about it, it seemed more interesting than the other choices of classes. What I hope to learn this year in this class is just something completely new that hasn't been mentioned in past classes. I don't see myself going into a career that the class has a focus on but it's a class that I'm sure I could find useful at some point later in life.