skateboarding!

This weekend, I was doing some cleaning when I stumbled upon my cousin's old skateboard that he gave me. At first, I didn't remember why he gave it to me cause he was pretty into skateboarding at the time, but after riding it outside, I realized why. I went at most like 5 feet before I came to a complete stop. Ok, that's probably a huge exaggeration, but yeah the wheels were pretty junk. Anyway, when I was riding it, I realized that skateboarding was filled with physics concepts that we were learning in class including all of the forces acting on the skateboard including friction. The wheels on the skateboard were pretty fat, which meant that there was a greater amount of surface area touching the ground. Also, they were not smooth at all, which contributed to the high friction. It didn't help that I was trying to ride it on the gravel, but nonetheless, I did not travel very far although I would I would kick as hard as I could. A couple people were walking by when I was experimenting with my skateboard, and I didn't look but I'm pretty they sure laughing at me. Anyway, this takes me to another force: the force that I applied to the skateboard to make it travel. In addition, weight, which is my mass plus the skateboard's mass times gravity, was being applied directly downwards on the skateboard. Also, there was a normal force being applied perpendicular to the ground, which was equal to the weight of the skateboard and me. Therefore, there were four forces applied to the skateboard when I was riding it. Crazy stuff.

initial thoughts

Physics so far this year has been fun and interesting. I really enjoy the class, but it has been really challenging for me, and is by far the hardest science class that I've taken at 'Iolani. Physics class is also completely different from any of the other science classes in that most of the learning is done on your own. It took me a while to get used to this style of learning as opposed to chemistry and biology, where lectures were the core to learning about topics. In physics, the learning comes through figuring out the homework problems as well as the important labs that we have every week. The homework problems, especially the last few, have always proved to be very difficult, and sometimes I find myself going in circles and then my head starts to hurt. This is when I take a break for some ice cream or something. Anyway, I find that the labs are also very challenging and at times, frustrating, but are usually pretty enjoyable. I feel fortunate to have smart friends who can help me understand the concepts I have difficulty with. Most of all, I'm really worried about quizzes and tests because my scores have not been too great even though I've been putting forth my best effort and studying a lot. Even though I know that the course will only get harder, I am hoping that I can get used to the faster pace and understand concepts better since I dropped APUSH. I think it will be a cool year