Laser Laws Reflection

This is my laser laws reflection blog post, the third project we did in Scimatics, 2020/2021 year. 

For this project, our driving question was ‘how can we test the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection’. I think that we can test this in many ways, and that this project was one of the most efficient ways, because we could test both the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection at the same time with only one physical model.

In this project, we were tasked with creating a light show using lasers and mirrors that tested the Law of Reflection, and the Pythagorean Theorem. But first, the things we need to learn before we can do that…

Building Knowledge:

To start us off, we learned about light, and how it can be described and defined. There are three ways that you can describe light. Wave, Particle, and Ray. For the purpose of this project, we will focus more on the wave and particle definitions of light. For the wave description of light, scientists have shown that  light acts like a wave, that travels by pushing other atoms into each other, which forms a sort of wave. Though the individual atoms are not moving, them bumping into each other and passing along the energy, forms what looks like a wave. When the atoms bump into each other, passing along the energy, some of the energy is lost. This is why when we shine a flashlight, it doesn’t go on infinitely. For the particle description of light, scientists use one particular experiment to show this definition. In this experiment, a scientist shone a red light(which has a longer wavelength) at a piece of metal and shone a blue light(which has a shorter wave length) at the same piece of metal, and analyzed which lights gave off electrons. Red light never gives off electrons, and blue light always gives off electrons, which defies the wave definition of light. This is why Einstein theorized that light has both wave and particle like properties.

Then, we learned about the law of reflection. This is a pretty simple philosophy, that I surprisingly knew a lot about. Basically, if you draw a perpendicular line from the reflective surface, and measure the angle from where the light is hitting the reflective surface and the perpendicular line. Then the light will reflect at the same angle on the other side of the perpendicular line.

Next, we learned about the Pythagorean Theorem. A squared + B squared = C squared. You’ve probably heard of it. We learned about this and made an experiment to test it.

Develop and Critique:

For Milestone Four, we individually made a prototype of what a our laser display will actually be. We had to make an experiment to show what one could do to test the Pythagorean Theorem and the Law of Reflection. I won’t show you that here because you will probably be scrolling for a while.

Present and Reflect:

In Milestone Five, we had to build our actual laser display. We assembled it over that course of a couple days and then we used a smoke machine so we could see our lasers. Our final product looked like this.

After the end of this project, we were tasked with making a mind map to organize what we learned. Mine looks like this.

Questioning and Predicting: All class time is used efficiently for learning and project work  without distraction.

This competency is pretty self explanatory, and there is no way I can really show how I extended and practiced this skill, besides you taking my word for it. I think I could improve this competency by not getting distracted by useless distractions on my iPad.

Communicating and Representing: A scientific experimental procedure is developed and implemented with all required steps of the scientific method. A conclusion about the law of reflection and Pythagorean theorem is formulated and supported my precise measurements.

I think that I really demonstrated this competency well in Milestone Four, where I feel as though I really accurately described, measured and labeled my experiment to test the law of reflection and the Pythagorean Theorem. I think I could extend this skill by planning some more complicated shapes with different angles then just 45˚ angles.

Applying and Innovating: The laser display is accurately planned, built, labeled, and measured. All group members contribute equally.

This skill can only really be shown in Milestone Five. I think I did this really well, and I felt really good when we placed all of the mirrors and the laser and turned it on and everything lined up perfectly. I was very proud when we finished aligning the laser, and I was happy with how accurately it was planned. I think that I can extend this skill by planning some more complicated shapes and trying to get the laser to perfectly line up and reflect along the mirrors with shapes that aren’t squares