Web Resources for the Energy Unit

Here are a few links for the energy unit. They are pretty useful.

1. Heat and Specific Heat
2. Calculating Specific Heat
3. Specific Heat Calculation practice problems
4. Phase Diagrams
5. Heating and Cooling Curves
6. Inter-molecular Forces

These are all good resources for this unit. Would be useful for the final, if you are taking it. :)

Unit Test for Energy Unit

Imagine you are doing a challenge. You have 28 minutes to do this challenge and a lot is staked on this challenge. You are under tremendous pressure, but you need to succeed. This is exactly how the unit test felt like. 22 questions in 28 mins. This seemed impossible, until I did it successfully. This unit test seemed hard, but it was not that hard. I actually finished the test in 18 mins and spent the next 10 mins revising. A lot depends on this test though. Like my whole semester grade. I am not taking the final at any cost. I really hope I did good.

It's all I got

Specific Heat Capacity of a Metal Lab

About 4 days ago, we did a lab to measure the specific heat of metals. My group did Copper. The procedure told us to get the metal to 100.0 degree Celsius and then drop it into room temperature water and then measure the highest temperature. This allowed us to calculate the specific heat of the metal. We did all of this and somehow yielded a percent error of only 1.55%!!! I don't know how but we did a great job on this lab. We weren't graded on percent error but I was still pretty happy. Here are a few pictures from the lab.

Web Resources for Biodiesel unit

These are a couple resources that talk about things relating to this whole unit. I'm sorry I don't have an explanation but they are all kind of self explanatory.

1. Biodiesel Video Contest Guidelines
2. Biodiesel Benefits
3. How to make a YouTube account for Biodiesel Contest
4. How to make Biodiesel
5. How to make a put put boat
6. How put put boat engines work

Hope these were helpful. May have been a little late, but still is useful.

Boat Race

This might have been one of the most intense boat races in the history of boat races. This is mainly due to the prize money. I know it won't sound like much, but the prize was extra credit. Although extra credit is not even that good a prize for other students, it is a goldmine for students in pre-ap chemistry. Although it was intense, it was still a fun race. Making the boat was the only stressful part. I didn't have a hard time making the boat, but I did have a hard time with the placement of the engine. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't figure it out. Then, I found out the next day with a little help from Mrs. Frankenberg. And then we finished our boat. After that, we just gave it a test run and then we were kind of done with it. Then, on Thursday, we raced. We went first and got 22 secs. We were in first place then. And then we weren't after some time. We didn't get extra credit in the end. However, I was still happy because at least we got full points. I am looking froward to summer. That's all I can say for now.

Dylan holding his prize boat for the slowest time!

Biodiesel Lab

This was probably one of the more fun labs that we have had this year. In this lab, we made biodiesel using corn oil. We first mixed corn oil and kOH/methanol solution. Then, we heated this mixture in a water bath for 25 mins. Then, we poured it into a cup and let it sit for a day. The next day, way separated the biodiesel from the glycerol at the bottom. The purpose of this lab was to create our own biodiesel to use for our boat. We are going to have a boat race contest in which we use our own boat and biodiesel to race. We are going to have the race in about a week. We still need to make our boats, so I better get started. I hope we win in the race, because the winner gets extra credit!

Biodiesel Video Contest

This last week we worked on making a Biodiesel video to submit to the Biodiesel video contest hosted by the American Lung Association. Our video was the best, until one of my classmates posted their video. The prize money is $1200 for first place. I feel like I am not gonna win that money anymore. The purpose was to make a video to educate people about the benefits of biodiesel in 1 min. We made a news cast video that was pretty good. I'd say we did a good job. We had a starting and ending news portion and the middle was stop-motion pictures and we had voice-overs. I can't wait till they announce the winners of the contest!

http://biodiesel.org/