Marble Run

Hello, fellow people, I have come from the land of....... Okay screw that, today I will be telling you about our experiment we did in term 2 about Marbles. This was basically about how a marble rolls down a course. So we had to go in groups and create an obstacle course for the marble to run on. Then we had to do a writing about it and how the marble stops and goes. \

Here is my writing, hope you learn something!

Marble Run Explanation

Introduction

What is a marble run you say? How does it a marble run work? Well today we are going see what
makes a marble run, and what is the science behind it.  In our class we had a challenge of who could
build a construction and have the longest time to hold the marble on the course, that is made out of
plastic pieces.  

How it works

The way that a marble run works is when the marble rolls down a stacked construction of plastic
curves.  To make a marble run works is when you have the right size or marble and the right
construction. Some problems with the marble is when the marble flies out of the construction and when
the construction falls down.  

Building a Marble run  

The marble run is built on steep and curvy plastics that is strong enough to hold the marble.  The way
to hold a marble run on the construction for a longer time is to make the construction higher, but also
stable or, use curvy pieces to slow the marble down. Another suggestion is making the marble run
long and with books to make the construction stable.  Now we have sorted out the construction, now
it is time to pick the right marble to go on our marble run. My personal suggestion is to have the right
size to fit inside of the pieces and also have the marble that has the right weight to go down faster or
slower.  

Gravity and Acceleration

Gravity I wonder how it works on a marble run, well gravity works on a marble run by using the marble
and pushing it down on gravity, what I mean is how the marble falls down during the course.  Next we a
re gonna talk about the acceleration of the marble, meaning how the marble gains speed during the
marble run. The marble run actually gains speed when there is a straight plastic pieces constructed
on the course, it also gains speed when the piece on the construction are steep meaning when it
goes down.  But when the marble is to fast it often goes flying out of the course, so be careful on where
your putting on the steep pieces.

Friction

The marble stopped, but how come it stops, well it stops because of friction, friction means when
you stop, either when going fast or slow.  But going slow on the marble is more affected to friction,
than the fast one. This can happen in the course when the marble is slow, because that is when
the marble is about to stop.   Friction is also connected to the word acceleration, they are similar
to each other because they are the opposite of each other. There is also another reason why the
marble stops it is also because of the construction of the marble run.  

Kinetic Energy and Potential Energy

What is the energy that a marble presents, and why does marbles need energy to roll, well it is
because a marble need energy to more around.  There are two types of energy that the marble run
possess, and those are Kinetic energy and potential energy. Kinetic energy means the energy
when the marble is moving and is on motion also meaning when the marble is rolling the course.  
Potential energy is when the marble is in motion or not moving, also meaning when the marble
has stopped or is stuck on the course.

Class challenge, Why are we doing this?

We a.re doing this because we want to know more about the energy and how the marble run works.  
Meanwhile in our class we had a challenge in groups on who can build a marble run and make
the marble stay on the construction longer.  The highest record would be 55.3 second, the
construction they built was by using the old fashion marble run piece. The one they made was
special because it had pieces that looked like a sinkholes which takes longer to go down.  

Conclusion

So in conclusion, the marble run works by using energy, weight, gravity, acceleration, friction and
the last one is the most important one is the pieces of the construction.   During our class challenge,
we had a fun time creating and learning things together. Even though my groups only got 10
seconds we tried our best and had fun.

2018 Wrap Up!

Hello, fellow viewers, school has just ended and I am here to tell you my amazing journey being a year 7 at Hornby High School. Anyways, shall we get started? "Yes!" Well, let's get going!

Term 1:

Term 1 was personally one of the hardest terms because you have to have tests because the teachers need to know your ability and how you work on each subject. It was also fun we had Athletics, we also had a lot of fun activities like going sailing (which I didn't post about, sorry) and some cool class activities.

We also did a few writing which was fun to write about because we got to taste the actual ice cream. Here are some of the writings, Respect Writing, The Taste of Heaven Writing, Good Goody Gumdro... and Its Just a Dream. Lastly, for the writing, we did awesome poems and amazing brochures for Hornby High School.

But the most exciting thing for me was the Commonwealth games, I had so much fun writing the post because I got to learn some countries I didn't know of and also I was happy because we got 5th with 15 medals!

We also designed our own street art with Mrs Cotter and I learned a lot from maths thanks to my amazing yet hilarious teacher (Mr Micthell).





Term 2:

Term 2, was full of cool and engaging activities, like NYLD, which is National Young Leaders day. I also got to finish my science badge which was palaeontology.


In kete we did mini inquiries about different like the science of cooking, we had to go in groups for this and decided which topic of science we should do. My groups chose astronomy which was about the stars. We also had to ask a question about astronomy so that we can present it for kete. So our question is What are the conditions in Earth that make it suitable for humans to live on and where else could we live?  We had a lot of fun making and learning new things.

Back to kete near the end to the term, we learned about Haorua. We had to make a writing and explain things we learned and we also had to make a presentation and present it to the whole class and it was really nerve-racking.


Term 3:

Term 3 was one of the most fun terms, but this was also the term that Mrs Cotter left Hornby High. But we have got a new old teacher her name is Mrs Alpers and she is one of my favourite teachers. She was teaching reading and writing. Reading was the best because we got to read Gangster Granny and do some reading plus which is an amazing site where you practice to read and learn vocabulary.


But my favourite thing in term 3 was Business and Enterprise, I hope you have seen the blog post because I don't remember much. So for Business and Enterprise, you have to pick a topic like food and think of something you would sell and we had to get in groups, my groups were Janel, Hans and JV. Our company name is LJ2H and we sold Banana Cues.

We also had Koru Games which was fun although we got 29th place.




Term 4:

Term 4, one of the most stressful terms of all.  There were a lot of tests but I had fun because we had Passion Projects and to tell you it was so exciting and fun. Mr Mitchell also borrowed his wife's turtle which was so cool her name was Yurtle.

In the first 3 weeks of the term, we also did a cool activity about sustainability, which was awesome because I learned amazing things about the world.


We also did this amazing topic for writing The Black Eye. Then we did the Science Roadshow which was of course very cool. If you want to find out more about the Passion Projects please find the Passion projects button of the left.

Well I hope you guys enjoyed and hope you have a great holidays! Stayed tuned for Summer Learning Journey posts!

Question: How many times did I say cool throughout the post?