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Capacitor Cake

This was produced by a student for an each-one-teach-one activity on capacitance a week or so ago.

Capacitor cake

 

I was really impressed by the dielectric etc. It makes a really good (and tasty) model of a capacitor. I’m wondering what else could be represented in this form.

Suggestions please!

Year 12 paper walkthrough

Hopefully you’ll find this video helpful - sorry about the quality in places - it was recorded after a very long day.


 
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Quote of the week!

In physics, you don’t have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you.

Frank_Wilczek

Tips for good practical write-ups

The practical report is composed of a series of separate sections in which specific information is conveyed.

Your task in the report is to tell your reader all about the study you conducted, you do this through a number of sections:

  1. Title
  2. Introduction - what’s it all about?
  3. Method
    • Prediction - What you think will happen…
    • Theory Summarize the basic physics of your experiment. Include equations and other principle things the reader would need to know in order to understand the experiment.
    • Variables - What will change - what stays the same
    • Apparatus & Materials - what will you use to do what?
    • Procedure -Describe briefly how you carried out the experiment. Do not include relatively trivial things like turning on a switch. On the other hand, you should include descriptions of how you determine things that are necessary to the anticipated results. This should be very short as well. Mention the particular pitfalls in data taking that you discovered and managed to maneuver around. You may need to recreate a wiring diagram or draw the apparatus in order to refer to it later during discussion
  4. Results - a neat table
  5. Discussion
    • Analysis - hat’s the pattern in the results - gradients etc
    • Conclusion - what do the results tell you?
    • Evaluation - Are your results valid etc?

You should try to write your report as if the person reading it is intelligent but unknowledgeable about your study and the area of psychology in which it took place.

The marker will be checking to see that you have written your report with this sort of reader in mind. So, you must make sure that you have:

* provided sufficient background material to understand what you did and why you did it
* have spelt out and developed your arguments clearly
* defined all technical terms
* provided precise details of the way in which you went about collecting and analysing the data.

Putting the report into specific sections makes this task much easier than it might otherwise be.

Year 13 homework 10/11/08 - due on Friday 14/11/08

To be presented on friday:

Capacitance-assignment-10-11-08

i-Tunes tips…

I have discovered that it’s quite possible to get iTunes to deliver pdf’s and If you would like to recieve info this way then try subscribing to the podcast to see if we can all get it to work.

In order to subscribe, you will need to have some software installed on your computer that can handle podcasts, iTunes is a popular route for this but other software such as Juice (windows, mac, linux) or Ziepod (windows) will also work for you.

If you have iTunes installed, just find the button on the feeds page that says “iTunes” in it.  Click on the button and it should open iTunes on your computer, starting at the correct podcast page.  All you need to do then is hit the subscribe button next to the picture to start downloading the files.  You can then keep these on your pc, print them, or even transfer these to your iPod, phone or mp4 player in the same way as you would transfer music or films.

For any other service, such as Juice or Ziepod, you need to right-click on the other link and copy the link URL.  Now open your aggregator program and go to the screen that lets you subscribe to a new podcast and paste in the URL from your clipboard.

If anyone needs some help with this, come and see me and I’ll try to get it working for you.

Homeworks soon to be available through itunes!

By clicking on the “Feeds” tab above you’ll be taken to a page containing links to i-tunes and rss feeds for each yeargroup - this means (especially in the case of the i-Tunes) that you can click on the link and any homeworks/podcasts/videos that I tag with your year-group will be delivered direct to your desktop!

Very nifty I think!

Scalars and vectors

Here’s the scalars and vectors class powerpoint to help you with revision!

Scalars and Vectors class ppt

Specification For “New” year 12’s

Now available through itunes!

icon for podpress  AQA Physics scheme!: Download

Open evening…

Many, many thanks to all of ou that came along and helped us out tonight at the 6th form open evening - you really made it the success that it was!

I’m exhausted as I’m sure you are - we had LOADS of people pass through and the room was really vibrant.

Favourite comment I overheard from a student talking to others was along the lines of “really, physics rocks, the staff really bring it alive!”

Well Done!