Laser Laws Blog Post

In this project (Laser Laws), the driving question was “How can we test the Pythagorean Theorem and the law of reflection?”. First of all, we learned about the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection and how they work. We also learned about different types of light. The Pythagorean theorem is used for finding the side lengths of a right-angle triangle. The equation is a ² + b ² = c ². A and b being the legs of the triangle and c being the hypotenuse (longest side of a triangle). When you add the length of one leg squared and the length of the other leg squared, you get the length of the hypotenuse squared. Then, you have to find the square root of the hypotenuse, and voila, you have all of the side lengths of the triangle.

The law of reflection proves that when a beam of light reflects off of an object, the angle of the beam of light and the normal (line that runs perpendicular to the surface) will be the same when the beam hits as when it reflects. For example, If the beam hits the surface at 50° (From the normal), it will reflect at 50° (Again, from the normal).

like all of the other Scimatics projects, we started this one out with a mind map. We wrote down what we knew about our big idea (driving question), and revisited that at the end of the project and demonstrated what we had learned by answering some of the questions. Here is my mind map:

In this unit, we were instructed to make a laser display that proves the law of reflection true and incorporates a right angle triangle measured with the Pythagorean theorem with our group. My group was me, Nolan, Alicia and Ines. As always, I will link their blogs at the end of this post. We chose to use a diamond as our shape. I think it went well.

Questioning and predicting

I tried my best to stay focused and not distracted during class time. A few times I kind of zoned out, as some of the things in the workbooks and textbooks we were given got a little confusing. I particularly found myself getting unfocused at the end of the week (Thursday, Friday). In the future, I will do my best not to let myself get distracted or unfocused. I would say that I used my class time efficiently. I found this unit the most interesting so far out of the others we have done. I really liked the work we were given concerning the Pythagorean theorem. I didn’t find the law of reflection as interesting for some reason. What we learned about different types of light was also interesting, but again, I preferred what we learned about the Pythagorean theorem and triangles and whatnot. Nevertheless, this was a cool unit.

Communicating and representing

Our experiment accurately demonstrated the law of reflection and the Pythagorean theorem. We used the scientific method and had precise measurements. We used both a ruler and the measure app. First we drew out the display on a piece of cardboard, illustrating where the lasers would be, the direction they would be aimed and the path the light would take. We also showed where the mirrors would be. Here is our measurement from the measure app:

Applying and innovating

we accurately planned and measured our laser display as a group. We planned the display well as a group and we all contributed equally. Building the display was my favourite part of this unit, as I enjoy building things and working with my hands.

At the end of this unit, we used a smoke machine to see our lasers and it looked really cool.