Our last unit in Math 1 was The Pit and The Pendulum, I chose to use my portfolio write up as evidence for the class because it was one of the best write ups I have made.
The Pit and The Pendulum
Lyric Kent
MASTERY
At the beginning of this unit we read part of the story The Pit and The Pendulum by Edgar Alan Poe. The story is about a guy that’s trapped and bound by leather strips while a pendulum with a blade slowly starts to lower itself threatening to cut him in half. The protagonist had to think fast and decided to use the rats that surrounded him to cut himself free. They gnawed at the leather bindings until he was free. He escaped just before the pendulum would have killed him, but would he have actually had enough time to escape? That’s what we were trying to figure out.
At the beginning of this unit we learned about data spreads and different curves as well as standard deviation. We tested to see how long our stride length ways, how many times our heart beat in 15 seconds, and how close we could get to some amount of seconds by counting in our head and using a stopwatch. We compiled all that data on to a graph and saw a curve running along the top of it that showed us the normal data and the more rare data. After we saw the bell curve we learned how to find the standard deviation of the data set and how to tell if a certain point was within 1, 2, or 3 standard deviations. We then moved onto different types of functions and learning how to read different data spreads. After that we did multiple experiments to see what factors majorly affected the period length of a pendulum. We compiled more data and finally learned curve fitting and came up with our own equations that would suit the pendulum and would calculate the amount of time it would take for the pendulum to reach the protagonist. I would give myself a 26/30 for mastery of this unit.
The unit question was put simply was “Does the protagonist have enough time to escape the pendulum?” The answer is yes but barely. Just like in the story he would’ve made it out just in the nick of time. In order to find out if the protagonist would have escaped or not we inputted the pendulum period time according to the length of the pendulum and used curve fitting to find the line of best fit so we could predict the time it would take for each period of the 30 ft long pendulum in the story.
The Normal Deviation and Standard Deviation worksheet really made me understand what standard deviation was, I was gone on the day that we first learned about standard deviation but I quickly caught on with a little help from Torrey. The Graphs in Search of Equations sheet refreshed my memory on how different things like exponent, square roots, or a plus or minus sign can affect and transform what the line will look like. I am proud of these pieces because I persevered and tried many different ways to solve them if I didn’t understand quite how to do them.
EFFORT/GROWTH
I feel like this unit I put in far more effort than I did the previous units that’s why I gave myself a 28/30. The previous two pieces of work I referenced were pieces that I worked hard on to understand and complete. I spent time on them and worked on them during PA class to get them done which is something I didn’t do in the previous units. As a result of this effort I learned that there's a satisfying feeling to getting things done on time and not having to do them the next day in class. I feel that I have grown a lot as student and will continue the do homework and finish my work in class whenever I can because I am feeling much more motivated. The “Lies Damn Lies” worksheet was were I finally gained a new understanding of the unit and was one of the first people to present my misleading graph, I was proud that I had put in the effort to do it at home and really understood it. Usually if we have to present something I always wait to go last but this time I felt like I had a good understanding of the problem and was eager to present what I had done. I feel like I deserve 28/30 because I really tried my hardest this unit and am proud of the work I have done and my understanding of the content.
EXTENSION QUESTION
Let's say that there were 20 rats chewing at the leather and each rat could chew through one strip of leather in 1.5 minutes. If the protagonist was strapped down with 25 leather strips and the pendulum period time and length were both the same would the protagonist have enough time to escape?
Lyric Kent
MASTERY
At the beginning of this unit we read part of the story The Pit and The Pendulum by Edgar Alan Poe. The story is about a guy that’s trapped and bound by leather strips while a pendulum with a blade slowly starts to lower itself threatening to cut him in half. The protagonist had to think fast and decided to use the rats that surrounded him to cut himself free. They gnawed at the leather bindings until he was free. He escaped just before the pendulum would have killed him, but would he have actually had enough time to escape? That’s what we were trying to figure out.
At the beginning of this unit we learned about data spreads and different curves as well as standard deviation. We tested to see how long our stride length ways, how many times our heart beat in 15 seconds, and how close we could get to some amount of seconds by counting in our head and using a stopwatch. We compiled all that data on to a graph and saw a curve running along the top of it that showed us the normal data and the more rare data. After we saw the bell curve we learned how to find the standard deviation of the data set and how to tell if a certain point was within 1, 2, or 3 standard deviations. We then moved onto different types of functions and learning how to read different data spreads. After that we did multiple experiments to see what factors majorly affected the period length of a pendulum. We compiled more data and finally learned curve fitting and came up with our own equations that would suit the pendulum and would calculate the amount of time it would take for the pendulum to reach the protagonist. I would give myself a 26/30 for mastery of this unit.
The unit question was put simply was “Does the protagonist have enough time to escape the pendulum?” The answer is yes but barely. Just like in the story he would’ve made it out just in the nick of time. In order to find out if the protagonist would have escaped or not we inputted the pendulum period time according to the length of the pendulum and used curve fitting to find the line of best fit so we could predict the time it would take for each period of the 30 ft long pendulum in the story.
The Normal Deviation and Standard Deviation worksheet really made me understand what standard deviation was, I was gone on the day that we first learned about standard deviation but I quickly caught on with a little help from Torrey. The Graphs in Search of Equations sheet refreshed my memory on how different things like exponent, square roots, or a plus or minus sign can affect and transform what the line will look like. I am proud of these pieces because I persevered and tried many different ways to solve them if I didn’t understand quite how to do them.
EFFORT/GROWTH
I feel like this unit I put in far more effort than I did the previous units that’s why I gave myself a 28/30. The previous two pieces of work I referenced were pieces that I worked hard on to understand and complete. I spent time on them and worked on them during PA class to get them done which is something I didn’t do in the previous units. As a result of this effort I learned that there's a satisfying feeling to getting things done on time and not having to do them the next day in class. I feel that I have grown a lot as student and will continue the do homework and finish my work in class whenever I can because I am feeling much more motivated. The “Lies Damn Lies” worksheet was were I finally gained a new understanding of the unit and was one of the first people to present my misleading graph, I was proud that I had put in the effort to do it at home and really understood it. Usually if we have to present something I always wait to go last but this time I felt like I had a good understanding of the problem and was eager to present what I had done. I feel like I deserve 28/30 because I really tried my hardest this unit and am proud of the work I have done and my understanding of the content.
EXTENSION QUESTION
Let's say that there were 20 rats chewing at the leather and each rat could chew through one strip of leather in 1.5 minutes. If the protagonist was strapped down with 25 leather strips and the pendulum period time and length were both the same would the protagonist have enough time to escape?