This is Kelso from Chimacum WA reporting to you on a blog. After the  super science woman was interviewed about the simple machines this is what he had to say:

Wellllll... the simple machines are inclined plane, screw, pulley, wedge, lever, and wheel and axle. (wheel and axle go together) While our teacher (Mr.Gonzalez) was at oddysey he gave us a assignment to learn about the 6 simple machines. Our information was collected from:     http://www.historyforkids.org/scienceforkids/physics/machines/index.htm, http://www.fi.edu/qa97/spotlight3/spotlight3.html, http://www.mikids.com/Smachines.htm, http://www.cosi.org/files/Flash/simpMach/sm1.swf, http://msteacher.org/epubs/science/science10/innovations.aspx, http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/InventorsToolbox.html, http://www.beaconlearningcenter.com/WebLessons/SimpleMachines/machines002.htm, and http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/curr/science/sciber00/8th/machines/sciber/intro.htm.

     The first simple machine I learned about was the lever. A lever is something you push or pull on to move something. You usually use a lever to move something heavy or make it go fast. The earliest levers developed inside animals bodies. They developed in fish first around 440 million years ago. We have used levers as tools for about 200,000 years now. One of the most important ways we used a lever was for a shaduf to lift water into irrigation channels. NOW THATS A LEVER!!!!

     The next simple machine we learned about was a pulley. It is a kind of wheel. It has two raised edges to fit rope through so that it won't come out. Pulleys might have been invented by Archimedes about 250 BC. Pulleys can be used to make it easier to pull a rope or to change the direction of a force or to get more mechanical advantage. You can lift something heavier than you can lift it yourself with a pulley.

Our 3rd simple machine was a pulley. They are used to make pushing objects easier.  They make it so that people don't have to lift a object. Making the ramp steeper and shorter make you have to push harder. You can also make the ramp less steep and you can push less harder but you would have to push longer. Inclined planes have been used since about 200,00 years ago. By the time of 2500BC people built thier own Earth ramps to move heavy stones.

      Next We learned about a wedge. It has two inclined planes back to back like a hatchet or axe. They were made long before people. We have used wedges in Africa since the stone age or 2.6 million years ago. You can use a wooden wedge to split a bigger piece of wood into smaller pieces. A thick short wedge will split things apart faster but you will have to push it down harder. A thin long wedge will drive in easier but will take longer.   

     A screw is one kind of inclined plane. Screws were invented mostly by people. They came long before the wheel and axle. The earliest type of screw that we have discovered came from about 700BC. The assyrian king might have used a screw pump. After that no one used a screw until about 250BC. Screws can convert force that goes around and forces that go up and down. They can thread into things like wood.

 For one people didn't use wheels until the early bronze age. (around 3500BC) The earliest evidence of people using  wheels comes from Sumeria 3500BC just when people started to live in city states. The first wheels were pottery. Three-hundred years later people decided to use it on wagons. The wheel allows you to do something easy for a long time. Axles also turn and will go around in a much smaller distance but with more force.

If you want to learn more about the simple machines check out my classmates blogs and the websites I have provided. Again this is Kelso from Chimacum WA signing out.  P.S. DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!!!

     Well another lesson learned or should I say lessons. We have just learned about friction and what it has to do with motion. So basicly what we did was we first got a wooden block and read about what we were going to do with the block. We discovered that we would have to use different surfaces to pull the block across. (we pulled the block 27 cm each time) The surface types we used were table top, wax paper, paper towel, coarse sand paper, and fine sand paper. For the table top and wax paper the friction force was .5 newtons but for the sand papers they were both about 1.6 newtons. The paper towel was about .6 newtons. From that lesson we learned that the rougher the surface type the more friction force. The smoother the surface type the less friction force.

     Our next assignment was to see what would happen if we changed the weight of the block. We started out with one block and pulled it across the fine sand paper that we were assigned to use (everyone else used the either the table top, wax paper, paper towel, or coarse sand paper) then we added more blocks until we got up to four blocks. Our conclusion for this lesson was that the weight of the block defiantly increases the friction force.

     Our third mission was to find out if different surface areas of the block affected the friction force.  Our block looked somewhat like this:

   The type of surface areas we used were skinny-long areas, short-skinny areas, and long-fat areas. After we pulled the block across the fine sand paper with all three sides we saw that it pretty much stayed with the same amount of friction force for every surface area.

Our conclusion for the entire lesson was that friction can be increased and decreased depending on the surface the object is pulled on. The friction will most likely stay the same if you change the surface area of the object. Also if the weight increases the friction will increase and if it decreases the friction will decrease. Now seeing that the surface the object is pulled on can affect the friction amount... can you imagine what it would be like if we had to always walk on ice?

     Ok first of all for all you people out there who don't go to Chimacum, I am going to let you know that you can call me Kelso its my nickname. Second the title of this blog is Forces of the World so I'm going to tell you all about the forces I learned about when we did our lesson 5. First we did an experiment with elastic forces. We streched a rubber band to a certain amount of centimeters wit a spring scale. That spring scale measured the amount of elastic force the rubber band was streching. The second force we really learned about was gravity well we learned about mass and weight which had something to do with gravity. We took a BIG rock, a little rock, a marble, a styropome cup, a copper strip, and a zinc strip. Then we measured them by ourselfs to see which ones weighed the most and which ones weighed the least. We figured out that it dosen't matter how big something is it just mattered how much mass the object had. We also found that the difference between mass and weight is that mass is the amount of matter something has while weight is a measurement of the pull of gravity. These are just some of the forces at work on  the Earth. Hey I also found this great website where you can measure objects. You should check it out! Also check out this picture it describes what I'm talking about... well it describes how the weight changes but the mass does not.     http://www.astronomynotes.com/gravappl/weight.gif

Thanks for checking out my rockin' blog! TTFN (Ta Ta For Now)

Our 6th period class has just finished three lessons on batteries.

     In lesson 1 we got to make OUR OWN BATTERY! It was totally awesome to be able to create a battery with copper sulphate, (which was the electrolyte) a copper strip, a zinc strip, some blotter paper, (to seperate the copper and zinc strip) and a rubber band. We noticed that the light bulb we connected to our battery did not start to light until about 5 seconds later. I also had to hold the lightbulb in a certain spot for it to light. The light lasted for about 6 minutes and 42 seconds. We concluded at the end that the battery will not light without the electrolyte. Our battery made a complete electrical circuit.

     In lesson 2, we learned about the  scientist Galileo and how he expressed his idea, go in trouble, then later WE relized he was right. We also learned about the drycells and the wet cells. Wet cells use acids, sulphates, salts, etc... dry cells use NO acids but some can be recharged depending on the battery.

     In lesson 3 we learned about the rechargeable batteries. First we tryed to light the bulb but it did not light so we learned that we need to charge the battery. When a battery is charged the battery stores chemical energy which changes into electricl energy which turns into light and heat energy. Then we connected the battery to the lightbulb and it lit! We finally experimented with a little motor  which used more energy than the lightbulb and went out quicker. Our time for the lightbulb was about 21minutes and our time for the motor was about 4minutes.

     Thank you for reading this I hope yo learned a lot about batteries. BYE!!!

Our websites are done! Our class had to do a lot of work but we finally finished our websites. My partner and I studied and tested for nitrates and phosphates. We took a lot of notes and tested at three different rivers, creeks, or streams. Our class tested at Chimacum Creek, Potlatch, and Hamma Hamma all located in Washington. You should totally check out our website on nitrates and phosphates!