Blog 2.4 Bruce Jr's Science Lessons

     Boom! Crack! Pop! All sounds that we know and interpret through our ears, but how exactly does sound work? Think of the air around you as a pudding-like substance, and sound is a vibration moving through the pudding. Sound is an electromagnetic wave that is just based off of motion. As I'm beginning to go through each of these I'm seeing I'm learning things myself as well. In order to explain sound in a demonstration I went back to a classic kid pastime.

    The cup phones that we see on Grown Ups are a perfect demonstration of how sound is just vibrations and motion. As one kid speaks into one cup, the vibrations travel along the line in-between the cups and once it reaches the other end, the vibrations are then transformed back into sound and are received as sound by the person on the receiving end. So from now on instead of thinking of sound as an invisible ghost, think of it as a liquid that flows from the mouth to the ear. The air arounds us allows sound to travel, and therefore, without air we couldn't breathe or speak.

Blog 2.2 Bruce Jr's Science Lessons

     Welcome to this genius hour's first lesson, due to a missing clamp in the science room I was unable to do this demonstration in person. However, I think I'm still gonna be able to demonstrate the science behind why, if I was able to demonstrate this in person, I wouldn't have gotten my face smashed in.

        As you can see in this grainy photo they are holding a bowling ball up to little Jimmy's face, and they are going to let it go and allow it to swing back. Now, some might think that this ball will hit the kid's face, but as I'll explain why, it doesn't. The ball, when it is held right at the kids face, has its maximum potential energy, and the most energy it will every have. When the ball begins its downward motion, the energy is turned into kinetic energy, or energy of motion. When the ball reaches the point on the other side and stops to begin its motion back, its energy is turned back into potential energy. 

    Finally, once the ball returns and gets close to the kids face it will never hit, because the ball lost energy through friction and therefore has less energy. In essence there's no way to create or destroy energy, you can only convert it.

Blog 2.1 Bruce Jr's Science Lessons

     OKAY, so for my first week of the genius hour, I'm already behind on my original plans. I was obviously too optimistic for myself, and didn't realize the preparation needed for this teaching project. Instead of already teaching a lesson I decided to work on organizing my lessons and selecting different demonstrations for them. I think throughout the week I was able to find a lot of demonstrations that could prove pints, but now I need to try and determine how I am going to explain and order them. 

    I'm really hoping to get into the lab and do my first demos next genius hour. This weeks focus will be on teaching basic mechanics of motion, so it should be a fun week and an easy one for all of my viewers. I'll see everyone next Thursday!

Blog 2.0 Bruce Jr's Science Lessons

    Hello sharks, for this genius hour I've decided to teach science, by using demonstrations and visual aids to help summarize and quickly teach developed thoughts. My main reasoning for doing this is I've always thought that science was a hard thing for most people to get interested in, but I'm hoping that I can make an easy and understandable alternative for people to enjoy and get inspired from. The process required will include a lot of help from the science department, specifically Mr. Russell and Mrs. Martin, along with research online about certain experiments. 

    Keeping my first genius hour in mind, I plan on using my new understanding of learning a new process to help my teaching of others. Science can be a massive thing to try and comprehend, so I plan on sectioning it up to create a more manageable source of inspiration. 

    The validation for my genius hour will be when I reveal the projects to the two teachers helping me. I will be giving them a grading score for each lesson, and plan on averaging the totals. Their feedback will also be a big determining force in whether I was successful or not. 

Blog 1.8 BBQ Forge - The Finale Featuring Paul Blart

         Hello and welcome to the final installment Seth Hopefully Doesn't Set His Yard On Fire, or SHDSHYOF, for this final week I put all the time I could into getting an edge on the metal. After all the weeks of working on this I'm ready for a break from the periodic blast of constant heat, and fatigue. Swinging a hammer by the heat for multiple hours is a sport in itself. If there's anything I've learned it's that I really would need to work on this craft for a long time if I were to become skilled at it. 

        So for this blade I was trying to for a flat ground edge, this edge gives me a strong edge that is easy to sharpen. In choosing this type of edge, I required a grinder which I went and used at the city shop. Without the grinder I would not have been able to get the edge with just a hammer alone. I think the hardest part of this genius hour was trying to get the motivation to keep going with it after all of these weeks. My challenge with online school was lacking the time management skills to get things done in increments, instead of doing it all at once. I had this same trouble when it came to this project, it is so much easier to fall into the trap of doing non-school related things, and then have to struggle to get everything done. 

        This iceberg is what it required to be successful. Within the blade itself, these traits are reflected. For my tedEd I'm going to be working on some finishing touches, and heat quench the blade. Thanks for joining me on this adventure!

"Safety never takes a holiday!" - Paul Blart 

Blog 1.7 BBQ Forge - Michael Gary Scott

        Hello and welcome to the sixth installment Seth Hopefully Doesn't Set His Yard On Fire, or SHDSHYOF, this week I tested my hand at forming an edge. I had everything set up and ready to go, and then my metal tongs broke and I dropped my metal into the forge. Once I smoothed over that speed bump I worked for an hour trying to draw out the metal into a long knife-like edge. Here's a picture of my very quick and sloppy weld that I used to hold my square hilt onto the metal. 

                                                    

    After I had been working for an hour I took a break and came back to it later. Once I returned I made a really rough edge, that I will show next week along with the makeshift handle I'm going to make. The blade I'm very hopeful for, and I'm really excited with how it's coming along. 

“I guess I’ve been working so hard, I forgot what it’s like to be hardly working.” - Michael Scott

Blog 1.6 BBQ Forge - The Ron Burgundy Special Edition

     Hello and welcome to the fourth installment Seth Hopefully Doesn't Set His Yard On Fire, or SHDSHYOF, this week I accelerated things and I decided to just start hitting metal on metal. The forge took a good two hours to reach the 2000 degree temperature I required to forge. The first time I opened it after the two hours, I thought I singed my eyebrows off for good! Once I went and made sure my eyebrows were intact, I went back to the forge and let my metal sit in there for another thirty minutes. 

    I pulled the metal out and began to hit it with my ball peen hammer, but soon I realized that this project was going to take much longer than I expected. At the very end of that hour I had maybe made an indent of a half a centimeter over the area of half a foot. It was very difficult for me to try and figure out a proper method. So for the next week, I plan on watching many YouTube videos on proper technique so I can maybe increase the effectiveness of each of my swings. 

I'm interested on which style of blacksmithing I'm going to pursue, but I'll be sure to let you know what I choose. 

"Don't just have a great night, have an American night." - Ron Burgundy