Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

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

In my last experiment in mechanics laboratory during our session for the twelfth week of classes for the second term, we performed Torque and Rotation.

Since it was the last quiz for the entire term, it was their final opportunity to get the forty point bonus for those who could get a perfect ten points.

One girl got nine points, because for the last question, where I asked for the equation that related both directions of the torque (clockwise and counterclockwise) she did not use the equation given in the manual that used the summation of both torques.

Instead she wrote that the product of the moment arm and the force (with subscript “clockwise”) was equal to the product of the same with subscript “counterclockwise”.

This was not the general equation, because it does not take into consideration that there could be more than one force on either arm. That was what the one point deduction was for.

She rationalized that it wasn’t what we were going to apply in the experiment anyway, which was true; there was no part in the procedure that used two or more weights on one side of the “balance”.

I just didn’t like how desperate she was sounding with each argument.

Sometimes, since I am a fan of dramatic movies, you get what you want just when you are giving up on it.

In the end I told her I would have an independent second teacher evaluate her answer, to whose decision we would both abide.

Another student also broke the special plastic (not wooden) meter stick that we use to obtain the center of gravity. He will have to replace that before the term ends or he would have no grade and he cannot enroll for next term.

I also told them about the rules for their practical exam next meeting, and how it is expected to weed out who really worked on the experiments and remembers what they did from the slackers.

Session 893 broke a ruler. Class dismissed.