Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Returning to my mechanics lab experiment last Wednesday, what made the experiment a little strange was the fact that the weights with the slots for the pan’s hook were used, when the weights without slots could have worked just as nicely. The weight of the pan they also had to add to the force they computed from the masses on each arm.

I also had to give a visual reminder of which direction is clockwise and which direction is counterclockwise.

I gave them a warning about setting the pendulum balance to zero first before laying the meter stick across it, and had to remind them not to adjust the screws again after placing the meter stick.

I told them that for both the equal and unequal weight parts of the experiment, they should only move one of the weights to a different moment arm, and that the other one should always be kept at 25 centimeters from the center of gravity.

When one group did not follow these instructions because they decided at the start to move the heavier of the two weights farther from the center, and, when they still couldn’t balance it even though the weight was at the end (roughly fifty centimeters from the center) that was when the started moving the lighter weight closer to the center.

I suggested to them that they should keep the heavier weight at 25 centimeters and just move the lighter weight closer at the start.

Some groups asked for the ceiling fans to be turned off and the windows to be closed so that the wind would not interfere with their balancing.

As for the students from the afternoon class performing the experiment on Conservation of Mechanical Energy, the only difference is that the partial heights I gave them were fifths of the original height and not fourths like I assigned to the morning class last week.

This was the second time that I gave them more trials in the revised procedure than in the morning class.

In the afternoon class, the same experiment went smoothly, if only because the students already saw how the experiment was performed by the first class. That didn’t mean they got high on the quiz, given that I obviously did not include anything about materials or the procedure, but instead concentrated on the theory and equations.

I also joked with them not to cry just because it was our last experiment.

In my Trigonometric Applications class last Thursday, we discussed the last types of identities, which were the half angle identities, the product to sum identities and the sum to product identities.

I also announced to them that the next quiz for which the identities are the coverage is on Thursday December 2.

That’s all I have time for now. I’ll continue tomorrow. Class dismissed.