Hot Air Balloons fiesta in SMK Padang Tembak 2002 and in Putrajaya 2013

My students in SMK Padang Tembak had built and launched many different types of hot air balloons to understand Archimedes' principle.

When we first began, many of our hot air balloons launches failed but we learnt much from the failures. Gradually our hot air balloons rose higher. The yellow cellophane balloon launched at 12 noon ( note the short shadows) rose a little -about 5 feet above their heads.

The white mahjong paper hot air balloon launched at 10.30 am rose to about 10 feet above their heads. Our best balloons were the red cellphane balloons which they launched at about 8.00 am. This one rose swiftly above the school's highest block of 4 storeys and we released the pull back string to that balloon and it rose until until it became a little speck in the sky.

To me and my students teams, their balloon launches were fun, meaningful and memorable because they had learnt with their whole being, i.e. pyschomotor, cognitively and in the affective realm. My other tagline for learning is Hands-On, Heads-On, and Hearts-On Learning in that order. I always believe first in teaching via pyschomotor skills - through our hands, our feet as that will stimulate our thinking - our brains and finally when we see the impact of learning upon ourselves and others, the joy of learning comes in.

We spent two nights in our Cyberjaya Summerglades homes for the 5th Malaysian Hot Air Balloons fiesta on 29-31st March 2013. Since our houses were not quite furnished yet, we stayed in Andrew Seoh's house and had 7 stars service right up to the last minute of our stay. Thanks Andrew and Lydia! We never quite fully expected  what would happen in this short stay!

We woke up early to catch the hot air balloons launch in Putrajaya. Listening to the birds chirping at dawn just outside our house is just so therapeutic. We were also blessed to catch sunrise over the Putrajaya Lake just outside Summerglades.

In physics, it is necessary for the balloons to be launched early in the morning so that the  cool temperature in the morning outside the balloon is much lower compared to the hotter temperature inside the hot air  balloon. Can you see the flames heating up the air in the red Tune Talk hot air balloon? The flames make the density of the hot air inside the balloon  much lower than the density of the cold air outside the balloon in the early morning

Another thing to realize is the size of the balloon compared to the actual basket. Can you see how big the volume V of the balloon must be. If you look very closely, you can see near to my head, the small wicker basket with the captain inside it,

 Buoyant force must exceed weight for the balloon to take off.  The buoyant force can be increased by increasing the volume V and ensuring the density of the cold air outside the balloon is higher. Weight can be reduced by making the density of the air inside the balloon to be lower by heating it up. Hot air rises because it is less dense.

The best treat for me and Joanne, Lydia and Andrew was watching the balloons descend. We did not know it beforehand but the balloons had targeted to descend on the grounds near Tun Dr. Mahathir house just next to my house in Summerglades. I heard the sound of hissing gases and saw the balloons coming over Summerglades. I quickly retrieved the keys to my house. I  found Joanne also awake. Both of us watched balloons descend from my back balcony. Then we clambered over the window onto my front balcony and had a first class seat to the balloons landing. Wow! I can see again God is  the Master Conductor who orchestrated events in perfect timing and location to give zest and pleasure to His children.

Joanne strikes a classic pose on my balcony
with the Holland hot air balloon flying past us.
Lydia struck a conversation with the captain on
her balcony  while the balloon flew past Lydia.

We ran excitedly to see how and where the Holland balloon would land. We discovered it just outside the grounds of Summerglades.

We watched the captain clambered outside the wicker basket which held at least 3 big  gas tanks. She instructed her partner to quickly detach the strings from the wicker basket. Another guy ran about 100 m and to pull the main string of the balloon very strongly. This would enable the balloon to land safely on one side. About 9 men or more were involved in this tricky procedure of landing and deflating the balloon.

The  Dutch partner jumps up the wicker basket and
detach the strings. The Malaysian crew catches the string
 with the flag and hold it tight and moves it away from the balloon.

This guy ran like lightning to catch the string to
bring down the balloon.

The grey lines are the fencing in between us within Summerglades
and the  balloon outside. It takes many men to deflate the balloon

One great moment was when Captain Munic from Holland, came by and said hello to us. Joanne and Captain are all smiles as they posed for this photo with Summerglades grey fencing in between them. Captain Munic says she observed rules and did not land inside the housing areas. Joanne is smiling because we have so many unexpected happy bonuses this beautiful Easter morning.

Another bonus. We also had the pleasure to view the motorised paragliders fly around Putrajaya and over Summerglades.

One more bonus. When we returned to Andrew's house, we found he had gone out and bought roti canai telur for our breakfast. And he had viewed so many balloons landing over Summerglades in the course of buying us breakfast.God rewards you, Andrew.

When we finished our breakfast, we drove like lightning back to KL to offer praise and worship to God in TOD at Easter. Christ rose this Easter morning many years ago! Today the risen Christ has caused all our spirits and hopes to rise again as we see how He orchestrated the hot air balloons for us.  Praise God a zilliion times!

Extra Physics class

Rekha's powerpoint on gradient

Rehkha from 5 Bakawali 2012 has done this presentation on steps involved in calculating the gradient of a slope. Thsi question always comes out in Paper 3 ( 3 marks) and in Peka . It  also occasionally in Paper 1 and 2.

I am trying to upload Rekha powerpoint - I hope it succeeds.

There is always room to learn through trying out something new.

Congrats Rekha for doing a great pience of work.

Love

Pn Tan

God leaks Physics questions? He does?

I happened to drive into school from the district education office in Sentul almost immediately after the Physics SPM Paper 2 2011 ended. I waved at my students streaming of the school gate and met some girls lingering at the car porch!

Boy,  they were excited! They told me with glee - "Teacher - Resonance came out! We all can remember so well teacher did the experiment at the assembly !" Then Sabrinah and Kayathry said - "Yes teacher - we did the peer teaching lesson for resonance and it came out! Yeah!!"




The girls had done this very funny lesson on resonance where
everybody in the class laughed after they saw the video of the
opera singer breaking the glass by her soprano voice.



I enjoyed getting very feminine slides from Sabrinah and Kayathry.
After all this is CONVENT Sentul! Feminine slides
are simply so refreshing after all the co-ed schools
and the co-ed slides


So I asked the girls whether they remember when they did the resonance peer teach project. They said - "In March." I said " Wow, God has been loving you gals and leaking the SPM question to you since March and you didn't know and weren't even conscious He was loving you by making you do the very project that would come out in SPM !"

Then I recieved lovely emails from the girls who had left earlier and who didn;t get to talk to me after the paper.

It was for the resonance lesson I borrowed the guitar from SMK Seksyen 5 Lab! It was well worth asking my ex- lab assistant to send the guitar all the way to SMK Convent Sentul! And I did the resonance expeiment at assembly and spoke my Principal's motivation speech from it on teamwork and one frequency and one spirit. No wonder the girls remember the lesson so well!



The actual SPM question and my girls loved it!



Then in Paper 3, another question was " leaked" by God right from my first lesson with 5 Anggerik. Read the email and see if you understand why Dorothea was so happy!

So - you see God does leak exam questions even with us being aware of it at all and He leaks it way beforehand - right from my first lesson and first experiment with my students. I feel so good knowing this , that right from the very start God's presence and love  was in our classroom leading us to vital truths in Physics and in life without us having a clue. Haha!

Anniversary

Almost a year ago, last Hari Merdeka in 2010, I decided to celebrate Merdeka by starting a blog on Physics. Exactly one year later, I am still going on strong and I now maintain several blogs. I am glad I decided to celebrate Merdeka last year by doing this little something different - blogging! The prime mover for the Physics blog was because my ex-headmistress, Pn Habshah came to Seksyen 5 in July 2010 and asked all Panitia to start writing a panitia blog. Thank you Pn Habshah!

Actually the opportunities for learning Physics via the Internet is literally limitless! Usually there are some topics your teacher haven't quite finished teaching or some topics you don't quite understand.  I do know many of you are quite worried as all the Physics topics will be tested on in the Trial SPM 2011.  I also know many schools have not quite finished the syllabus, so how do you begin to learn on your own?

Simple!  Just google whatever topic you need to learn for example, CRO movies or electronics movies or radioactivity movies - especially the last 3 topics which you haven't quite finished and you will find many many videos of teachers teaching these topics or funny videos showing you how to understand the lesson.


The following are the links on electronics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3OSTflMO80&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnl1vuwjHto&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCe1JXaLEwQ&feature=related



The major difference between learning on the net and live from your teacher is that when you have questions, you can ask your teacher and in real life you have a relationship where your teacher and you enjoy one another's friendship and development.



Also your teacher can give you short cuts and tips to learning. For example, I like to use the Happy Family concept when teaching logic gates.  Secondly I introduce the logic gates by using an automatic artificial intelligence based on the binary system which only have two numbers 1 and 0 as in the case of the automatic piano in my music box.





This music box plays music automatically without
a human musician because of the binary system. Do you see the baby piano
in the music box?When the piano keys meet the white dots, they are raised and the input is 1.
When the keys meet the grey section the keys are down =0.
This means by positioning the white dots, I can raise the piano keys
and play a tune according to how I program the position of the white dots.

 

The AND gate is a very strict family when the father or Ayah (input A) and the mother or iBu (input B) have to agree ( be 1) before the Child gets ( output C) gets to go out and have fun any where ( output 1). The Boolean logic is simply A.B which means A multiply by B ie 1 x1 = 1 but 1x 0 = 0.
My short cut tip is the symbol looks like D for darab and D dor DAN which is BM for AND and multiply

In the OR gate, the family is less strict so if either father or mother says yes, ( input on 1) the child gets to go out. The OR gate already looks less strict since the lines are curved which means means the parents are not so straight laced or strict. The Boolean logic is A+B so if daddy A says yes = 1 but mummy says no = 0, the child gets to go out because 1+0 =1

In the Not gate, there is only 1 input so it is a bit like a single parent fanily with a rebellious child so if the parent input says yes,(1)  the defiant child says the opposite (0). My apologies to single parent families for using this allegory bcause not all children of single parent family are that rebellious.

Then you have the NAND ( Not + AND) which is really a very very rebellious child ie both parents says yes but the child says no. Similarly the NOR gate.

The exclusive gate is a little tricky. The parents are on the verge of a separation so if daddy appears, mummy won't appear and the party can be held without quarrels and vice versa but if both daddy and mummy appear, they will quarrel and the party is a no no.

You can see from the the 2nd row of the truth table for the X Or gate that if daddy A does not come (0) and mummy B comes (1) , then the child will have a party (1) but if both daddy and mummy comes as in the last  row, there will be a BIG quarrel and no party (0)

So I am trying to teach on line what I could not cover in the class. See how much you can understand and remember and come meet me on Friday in 5 M if you have questions.

Cheers and don't get so stressed out by Physics!

air show movie

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trying out new links

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Emf and ohm law experiments in the lab.

I was a little afraid that I would not see the day in Convent Sentul where every student can set up their own electrical circuit and take their personal individual readings of volmeter and ammeter without being aided by any one.

But today was the day the girls embarked on doing their electrical circuit for the first time in their life! Delightfully all 33 girls started doing their own experiment about 11.20 am and all completedthe experiment succesfully by 12.15 noon.

Sharmilla deep in concentration with her circuit.

Of course the preparations towards today's experiments were not as easy.


First the lab assistants had to be trained - thank God I managed to get Ibrahim my very competent ex- lab assistant from SMK Padang Tembak to come over to train our lab assitants for two days.

Now finally they managed to identify and locate long lost equipment such as the long rheostat etc etc, and prepare and repair whatever faulty equipment to make 15 sets of electrical circuits.


rb stands for red button and bb stands for black button and red lines indicate red wires connevted to the positive terminal of the battery and black lines represent black wires connected to the negative terminal of the battery.


I am happy to report the girls enjoyed the experiments and the first batch girls were able to confidently teach the 2nd batch girls to do the experiments.

There were some students I had to test to make they could do all on their own without any assistance and yes! Harkiren did it all by herself! Hallelujah! See the smile playing on Harkiren's lips as she sets up her own circuit.

Darshna sets up her own circuit under the watchful eyes of her two friends.

Rachael and Rinnisha grinning as they read their ammeters and voltmeters.

And lastly now to test you. What's the reading on the ammeter?

Essay question on waves Paper 2 Diagnostik 2011

Dear Phyics students,

I thought it appropriate to blog a bit about some of the answers apart from discussing in class so that you can still remember the discussion after the class.

I am personally very encouraged by the phenomenal improvement 5 A has shown in Paper 2. All except 4 students have shown great improvement eg the first 2 students alphabetically Aliah went from 12/100 in Paper 2 Intervensi Feb 2011 to 23/100 in Diagnostik Mei 2011 and Ammelya went from 27 to 50. Congrats! Most of you record about 50 - 100% improvment except for the 4 students. I pray and hope you will all continue to sustain the improvement but I see a lot of work on your Form 4 basic foundation needs to be done by both you and me.


To prompt your memory - the essay question 10c

My philosophy is you learn best from pictures. Look at the following pictures to gain ideas about the design of the hall, the furnishings and the sound and lighting systems as stipulated in the question.


See the parabolic shape of this ceiling to improve acoustic effect.

Note the many lamps on the ceiling and the parabolic shape of each lamp.

Note the red carpet on the floor to absorb the echo

Note again another view of the parabolic shape stage, the many parabolic lamps and trough lamps and the chair cushions to absorb echo.

Note again carpets, cushioned banner and cushion chairs to absorb echo and parabolic shape stage for acoustics and the two speakers at each extreme end so that a is big and x the distance between loud sounds( constructive interference) is small.









This pic is just for fun! Name these two paraoblic shape instruments. You saw them during the orchestra performance.

Finally the answer to part 10 d must be quite long as it is for 4 marks.