Top Ten Physics and Fly Fishing

1.      Tides on Salt Flats

Tides on salt Flats can make or break a day on the water. An incoming tide sets the fish off, so much that Giant Trevally will begin to chase a fly at forty miles an hour before it even lands on the water. These tides which are the dreams of fly fisherman are caused by the Sun and moons Gravity, Even thought the sun is enormously larger than the Moon, the Moon still has more play in tides due to its close proximity, as the gravitational formula squares distance as a denominator diminishing the force. The highest tides are when the moon and sun line up and create a spring tide.

2.      Stop Lights driving to rivers

A stop light knows to change direction because of electromagnetic induction, and as the car rolls up to the stop light a magnet inside a large set of coils of wire is moved. This causes a voltage inducing a current. This current is then recognized as a signal to change. Then Sam, Henry, And I can go catch fish without having to run the stop light like usual.

3.      Planes flying to the Flats

Asheville is not home to any salt flats, so I have to fly to the flats because there is simply nothing more fun than slinging a Sage VXP with a Shark Wave line, like it is just perfect, But to make this a reality The plane’s wings must have air flowing over the top of the wing move faster than below, or more wind resistance. This Ties into how wind resistance is affected by speed and surface area.

4.      Trolling Motors on Boats

Once you get to the fish you don’t want to spook the fish, so we use trolling motors, which are electric to quietly move us into position to stalk fish. A combustion engine is simply too loud. The Minn Koata’s that we use are moved by a current carrying wire, and magnet which are then moved by the torque created when the wire has current flowing. The torque then spins the props moving a twenty one foot flats boat through the water like a Virginia class submarine undetected.

5.      Hydro Electric Generators at dams

When I’m on a float trip I often find myself having to portage a drift boat over a Dam, and it simply is less than pleasant. The dams are usually hydro electric, where they use the weight of the water to spin a turbine, which then spins magnets around coils of wire, and through electromagnetic induction energy is created. I simply hate dams.

6.      Flies dropping more slowly due to air resistance

Air resistance of a fly completely changes the way that it’s cast. A big dry fly will have big wings, so that it drops slowly and elegantly to the water. This differs from a big nymph where it’s all chunk and dunk. The physics are simple; a larger surface area will have more air resistance and drop slower.

7.      A wet fly swinging across at an angle like a boat vectoring across the river

Swinging wet flies is one of the oldest forms of Fly Fishing dating back to the 1300’s in Japan, it has transformed into what the British call throwing spiders. The idea is that the fly is caught in the water and pulled up by the tension of the line. The Physics Involved reminds me of the man trying to get across the river, as we discussed vectors of projectiles.

8.      Magnetism on my Tying bench

Magnetism is on my bench, as I have strips of magnetic lining to catch the small size 18 hooks which quite often slide out of my hands. Magnets are made up of domains which all spin together. I often think of this due to the large quantity of flies which fall out of my hand.

9.      Gravity with water flowing down a stream  

The Water in streams remind me of the force of gravity, with how it constantly flows downward toward the center of the earth, and to the ocean and its tides reminds me of how everything is attracted to each other due to gravity, and the massive mass of the Earth.

10.  A Tug of war type situation with a fish on the line

A fighting bull redfish will Spool a Ross CLA 5 in 5 minutes flat, and constantly reminds me of how tug of war is simply about putting more friction between the ground than the fish. The fish wins, since even the CLA can only apply 10 pounds of drag. The Fish simply uses its large forked tail as a turbo booster and creates so much friction with the water that it can pull line out at a staggeringly high rate.

Turbine Blog Post

Background

The physics involved to make our turbine create current, or let alone spin were Torque, Newton’s Law of inertia, friction, Faraday’s law, electromagnetic induction, and magnetism. To induce a voltage, this would create a current. Electromagnetic induction works by utilizing the magnetic fields produced by the magnets, which would then induct the wires with them. Friction was ever present, in the pieces which held up the whole system, to the string keeping it in place. Torque was an issue on the blade which carried the magnets, as due to its width carried a large deal of rotational inertia.

Materials and Methods

List of Materials

·        2 liter Soda Bottle

·        Large box from Anderson basement

·        String about 4 ft

·        Coils of wire

·        Magnets

·        Thin round piece of wood to mount magnets

·        Hot glue

·        Robotics 1inch spreader shaft

·        Robotics aluminum 1.2 inch diameter tube

Entire / Wind catching

Coils

Magnet placement

Results

We created .002 volts of energy, and .002 Amps of current.

We were not able to light a light bulb, because we did not create enough current, due to the large amounts of friction we had, and low amounts of wind catching.

Discussion

This project taught me that friction, and rotational inertia is a killer.  I also learned that keeping it simple is the way to go, and that robotic s parts are not always the hot setup. What worked extremely well was mounting our set up on a string rather than on a double cross. We changed our design three times, each time streamlining, and making it sleeker. I suggest this. I also suggest working ahead on the project, since during building things can fall apart very quickly. Don’t try to build a rocket ship, try to build a simple machine. Going back again I would begin with a simpler design from the beginning. 

Unit Seven Summary

Unit Seven Unit Summary – Magnetism

What did we learn the unit?

Forces on charged particles in an electric field; Motors

            A motor must have two components, a magnet and current carrying wire. The current in the wire when perpendicular to the magnet induces a torque, causing the current carrying wire to spin. A magnet’s magnetic field flows from north to south, and is why the north pole of the earth is actually magnetically south. In order for a magnet to form the domains must align in a single direction. A domain is a group of electrons which move together.

Electromagnetic induction common applications

            Electromagnetic induction is present in everyday life, in stoplight turn signals, credit card machines, and metal detectors. All work by shifting a magnet in a coil of wire to cause a voltage, which creates a current. This then sends a message in the form of a current to either the switch box in the stop light, the card reader in the card machine, or the beeper in a metal detector.

Generators and Energy Production

            Generators work by spinning magnets around coils of wire, which creates a voltage by electromagnetic induction. To get the magnets to spin often water is boiled creating steam, which turns the fan blades attached to the magnets. This is creates alternating Current.

Transformers and Energy transfer from Power Company to Home

A transformer works by utilizing faraday’s Law, by using electromagnetic induction to increase voltage or to lower the voltage. There are two types of transformers, Step up which increase voltage, and step down which reduce voltage. Transformers rely on alternating current to be able to induct voltages.

Formulas

Faraday’s law

Number of loops of wire / voltage of primary = Number of loops of wire / voltage of secondary

How does this relate to the real world?

     Magnets, electromagnetic induction, and motors are the grounds, on which our society is built. They provide the power to keep the lights on, create the machinery that provides convenience, and builds the motors to power our fans in our dorms. Without magnetism the world still be in the stone age.

Motors

·   What was the function of each part of the motor?

Battery – to provide the charge to the current carrying wire

Paper Clips – to hold the current carrying wire, and to stabilize it providing a base to sit on

Copper wire – acted as the current carrying wire, which spun.

Magnet – provided magnetic force to cause the current carrying wire to exert a torque

Rubber band – To hold everything together

·         Why did you scrape the armature in a specific way?

If the wire received power the entire time, it would not try to spin around to get away from the magnet, and would remain sedentary.

·         Why does the axle spin?

The axle spins, because the current in the wire if perpendicular to the magnet, and a magnetic force is produced with that, and so the force tries to exert a force in the form of a torque to rotate it.

What could my motor be used for

1.      Spinning a fan

2.      A car axle

3.      Powering a hamster’s treadmill

4.      A hoist to move paper between floors

Video

Unit 6 Summary

Unit 6 Summary Blog Post

            Electricity and Charges

What did we learn this unit?

            Charges- There are three ways to create change in charges, friction, contact, and induction. The first two take them by touching, which steals electrons. Induction however does not touch, and uses its high amounts of energy to move electrons. The two types of charges are negative and positive. They are attracted to each other. They do hate being next to like charges though.

            Polarization- Is where charges separate, but the object as a whole stays neutral. This happens when something which is very charged comes into close proximity with a neutral item. As the distance increases the force decreases.

            Electric fields- The area around a charge can influence another charge. Electronics are put in an electric field inside a metal container, which blocks outside forces, by having forces from every direction.

            Voltage- is the electrical measure of Potential energy. A volt is how much PE an object has, and Voltage is the difference in PE two objects have.

            Circuits- To complete a circuit current must be able to flow from one end out of the power source, to back in. If at all there is a break in the wire in a series circuit the entire current will disappear. In a parallel circuit the power will still flow as long as the break happened after meeting the first light or appliance. Parallel circuits have fuses, because adding objects to the circuit increases current. A fuse works by breaking the circuit in case the wire becomes too hot. A series circuit has a certain amount of current, which diminishes with the number of lights/ appliances attached, due to resistance.

Formulas From the unit

            Power = Current (Voltage)

            Current = Potential energy / charge

            Current = voltage / resistance

            Coulomb’s law

Power = watts

            F=k Q1 (Q2) /d (d)

Things students often forget

·         That volts and voltage are two different things. A volt is the amount of PE, and voltage is the difference in PE.

·         Being polar does not mean the item has a charge.

·         Flow arrows point to what a positive atom would do.

·         The act of lightning is not induction, but rather the build up on the ground.

·         The same numbers of electrons that flow out of a battery come back in on the negative side.

How this relates to the outside world

            Electricity is an integral part of our daily lives, and having a simple understanding of it is crucial to better knowing the world around us. Parallel and series circuits, lightning rods, and dryer sheets are things we interact with daily. Knowing those makes us more able to take care of issues our selves, and opens the gates for new robot designs.

Podcast

Mouse trap car post

Mouse trap car Blog post
Video of our car in action

Sydney and me with Clarence (car) after our timed run.

Clarence the three wheeled monster clocked in a t covering five meters in 4.23seconds taking 4^th place

How did Newton’s Laws apply to the performance of the car?               

·         The first law states that objects at rest will say at rest, and objects in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. This law is used in the car as the spring acts as the outside force to start the car, and then by utilizing the smallest amount of friction an outside force the car will continue to roll forward.

·         The second Law states that acceleration equals force over mass. This is seen in the car in the lever arm of the spring, as well as the accounting for mass. Since the spring creates a set amount of torque creating a longer lever arm decreases force, but as this happen the longer lever arm moves farther distance.  A shorter lever arm uses more force to produce the same torque, and is therefore faster. Weight and mass on the care is a thin line, on one side it is not heavy enough, and on the other it is creating too much friction with the ground and will not work.

·         The third law states that every action has an equal and opposite force. This is seen in the car with the wheels, as wheels push car back ground pushes car forward. The car creates more friction forward then backward and therefore accelerates on to the track.

Which Part of your car relied on friction? How did you utilize it?

            Our car relied on friction in the wheels, so that they would hold traction and be able to move on the ground. We accomplished this by using balloons and stretching them around so that they would be covered in rubber, and therefore very sticky. There are two ways to change friction one by adding weight so that the surfaces are pushed harder together, or changing the nature of the surface, which is what we chose.

How did the size of the wheels affect the cars performance?

            I think we chose wisely in choosing a wheel which was not to large or small. We used CD’s, and their large diameter was very helpful because each rotation covered much more ground than a smaller wheel such as bottle cap. This is seen in the real world with fly reels, as larger reels are made in a large arbor which has a much greater diameter than mid arbors which only pick up a fraction of the line in each rotation. I think our choice of using a wheel which was not very thick was very beneficial, as it is comparable to a road bike tire and that of a mountain bike.

What did the size of the wheels mean for torque, and rotational inertia?

Larger diameter wheels mean larger torque, since the wheel radius acts as a lever arm. A larger radius means that the weight is going to be spread farther away from the axis of rotation, and therefore have a larger rotational inertia. Though a larger diameter wheel allows you to cover more distance in a single rotation it is also much harder to get going due to its larger rotational inertia.

Why can’t we calculate the amount of work the spring does on the car? Why can’t we calculate the amount of potential energy stored in the spring, and the amount of kinetic energy used?  Why can’t we calculate the force of the spring on the car?

            We cannot calculate the amount of work the spring does on the car since the spring is not parallel with the ground, and therefore no work is done. We cannot determine potential energy since work = change in kinetic energy, and kinetic energy = potential energy, and since work cannot be determined nor velocity since it is constantly changing finding the energy is impossible. We cannot find the force because we cannot calculate work, which would allow us to solve for force since work = Force (Distance).

Reflection

            Our design did not change at all between drafting and finished product. The only major change was the difference in use of robotics fasteners to on the forward wheel The change was prompted by the hot glue on the forward axle from becoming dislodged causing us to lose our front wheel.

The only major setback we experienced with performance was the tendency of the car to get stuck in the rut of the floor boards, and to eventually stop over a foot short. To address this we put masking tape on our front wheel so that the surface would be wider eliminating the ability of it to sink into a rut.

. To make my car go faster in the future I would use mono filament instead of a braided yarn as it would stack better on the axle allowing for more line under tension so that you will get more rotations on the axle allowing for a farther distance to be reached.

Next time I do a building project I want to spend more time tinkering with a working project so that I can tweak it to be better. In both robotics and this project I felt that we built a decent product but did not meet its full potential due to lack of time experimenting with it.

Unit 5 summary

What did I learn this unit?

Work and power

            Work = (Force) (Distance), this simple equation has a few rules though; the force and distance must not be perpendicular. If this occurs then no work is done.  Even if you apply force on a wall for instance, and the wall doesn’t move know work is done since there was no distance component.  Work is calculated in a unit called Jules. 746 Jules equal 1 horsepower. Power is calculated by dividing work by time. Power is calculated in units named watts.

Work and Kinetic Energy

            Change in Kinetic energy is equal to work. In this way the two are very closely connected. The formula for Kinetic energy is shown below. Kinetic is moving energy, while potential energy is stored energy.

Simple machines

            Simple machines do not change the amount of work to finish a task. Machines simply lengthen the distance so a lesser force is needed. Work in equals work out. A ramp which is a simple machine spreads the distance of lifting an item from 1 meter to 4, so only ¼ the force  is needed. Still creating the same amount of work.

Formulas from the unit

·         Work = (Force)(Distance)
·         Power = Work / Time
·          Kinetic Energy = ½ Mass ( velocity^2)
·         Potential Energy = Kinetic Energy
·         Change in kinetic energy = Work
·         Work in = Work out

How is this relevant in the outside world?

            Work and simple machines are found everywhere. Simple machines create the world around us, and without them there would not be food on the table, electricity to power our lights, or even lights to be turned on. Work is everywhere, even whenever we move up and down for instance.

Podcast Video on Simple Machines