Laser Laws- Summative Post

Introduction

Welcome back to my blog. Today, I am going to be summarizing the latest project we did in PLP 8. This project had to do with lasers, triangles, light and making the light reflect. At the end of the project, we created a display using actual lasers, but a lot led up to that moment. Today I’m going to walk you through our Laser Laws project. Hope you find it interesting!

Driving Question: How can we test the Pythagorean Theorem and the law of reflection?

 Many parts of the project helped us get the answer to the driving question. I think the one that helped the most was milestone 4, where we had to use this website to create a right angle triangle using virtual mirrors and lasers. We had to make an exact right triangle using light. We measured the hypotenuse of the triangle using only the Pythagorean theorem, then later measured the legs of the triangles using the theorem. So in answer to the driving question, we can test the Pythagorean Theorem using right angle triangles and measuring the hypotenuse or the legs. We can test the law of reflection by using mirrors and lasers and measuring the angles they bounce off the mirrors on.

Evidence of my learning

During this project, I learned a lot. However, I think what helped me learn the most was Milestone 4, the one I mentioned in my answer to the driving question. It helped me grasp how light reflects off mirrors. Milestone 4 was a science experiment. We had to test the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection by writing a hypothesis, procedure, list of materials then conducting an experiment. I think it helped me learn a lot because it shows how the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection work, whereas just reading a textbook about them is harder to grasp the concept. 

Another thing in this project that I learned a lot about is light waves. We read a lot about them earlier on in the project. I now know about particle models of light which imply light moves in particles, so therefore bends. I also now know about wave models of light which imply light moves in a wave-like sequence. Pictured below is a light wave simulator.

To show how my understanding of the project has expanded over time, we created a mind map at the start of the project. We wrote everything we knew and things that we were still wondering about in it. Then t the end of the project we made another mind map with things that we know on it. I think this indicates how much I’ve learned in this project and helps you visualize how much you know at the start of the project compared to the end.

What completed my learning, however, was Milestone 5, the final project. For Milestone 5, we had to create a display using real lasers. For this, we were put into teams so I was with Ava, Hannah, and Makenna. I think our team worked well together and we created an awesome final project. For the project, we created an exact right angle triangle with mirrors and lasers. We went for sort of a Star Wars theme so we wrapped the cardboard base in blue paper and drew stars and decorations on it. Ava supplied figures of some of the ships from Star Wars and it turned out aesthetically pleasing. However, aesthetics weren’t the only thing that made this project good. For each side of the triangle, we measured it using the Pythagorean Theorem. We also measured each angle with a protractor and recorded all the equations and measurements on the paper base so it was physically part of the project. Completely unrelated to the project, we also created a cardboard tower, which we dubbed Carl. Carl was sort of the team mascot and ended up being an actual part of the project. 

Curricular Competencies 

All class time is used efficiently for learning and project work without distractions.

I think our team did well on this competency. As far as learning and project work goes we knew what we had to do and we did it together. We were good at working together and rarely got off task. We were focused on the project and how we wanted it to look at the end. We finished the project pretty early on and a good amount of time was spent making it look more aesthetically pleasing, rather than claiming to be done and then getting off task. In my opinion, we achieved this competency rather well.

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

In my opinion, our team accomplished this curricular competency rather well. We wrote an in-depth lab report for our project. We included each required step of the scientific method and were very detailed in each one. I believe we achieved this competency and put good work into it.

The laser triangle is accurately planned, built, labelled and measured. All group members contribute equally.

I think our team did well on this. Our laser triangle was flawlessly measured using the Pythagorean Theorem and proven to be extremely accurate after a measure with a ruler. We built it very well and it ended up looking very neat. Before we started we had a plan in mind and we stuck to it, adding extra things along the way for effect. All the group members contributed and it ended up looking great. 

Conclusion

To wrap up this blog post, I’d like to thank our sponsors, nobody. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading about how much I’ve learned in the past while. I have learned so much about light and I think this project was a good way of learning. Ciao!

“Day after day, we’ll find a will to find our way. Knowing that the darkest skies will someday see the sun.”

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