Before we started, I didn’t know a lot about work, but I did know about machines. I learned about simple machines before. I know about levers, pulleys, wheels and axles, screws, wedges and inclined planes. I learned a lot more about what work actually is science and how I can find it for different simple machines.

I felt that an improvement on the Inclined Plane Lab report is to have a better results analyzation. I felt that the results didn’t really meet the criterion rubric. During the results analyzation, there was scientific reasoning used, but there weren’t all correct. To improve, I would have to add more correct scientific reasoning to the results section.

I would like to study more about different simple machines in this unit because I find other simple machines interesting and I want to know more about them. Just by studying one simple machine, I could get better at knowing that specific simple machine, but then I wouldn’t really have knowledge about other simple machines. Different simple machines has different ways to calculate work, and without studying the few basic ones, I didn’t really know how to calculate or find the work of the machines.

The next unit is on energy and this unit relates to the next unit in multiple ways. Energy is being capable of doing work. When work is done from one object to another, energy is transferred. The units of energy and work are the same, which is joules (J). To calculate energy in general, the formula would include the weight or force of something measured in Newtons times the height or length of something measured in joules. When Newtons and joules multiply, the resulting unit would be in joules. Therefore, the unit of both energy and work is joules.

For the lab report, I wrote the hypothesis, variables, materials, results and conclusion. For the presentation, I added information on the “Background” slide, I put my research on the “Wheels and Axle” slides, I inserted a picture on the “A Picture of Wheels and Axles” slide and information on the “Work Input and Work Output” slide. I added some things in the “Calculating the Force” slide, made the “Solving Problems in Life” slide, inserted pictures into all the example slides, made all the experiment slides, cited the pictures and sources and made the bibliography slides. For the script of the presentation, I wrote all of the slides I was responsible for. I also self assessed almost all of the criterias by myself.

A major challenge in this project was teamwork. In my group, I had to make and do almost everything in this project. When I try to discuss with my group members online about this experiment, they often don’t have time or don’t respond. They also didn’t write the parts assigned when told. Therefore, I had to write almost the whole lab report by myself. Due to the amount of work I had to do, I gained a lot of stress. To overcome this challenge, I told my group members to write their own part of the script.

I enjoyed conducting the experiment the most. I like collecting data and information. It is fun to learn new information and find out if the hypothesis was supported by the data or not. The process of setting up an experiment was fun also. I was proud of how the presentation came out. I liked how the slides were easy to understand and that there were pictures along with most of the slides.

I would remember the things I learned when researching about wheels and axles. For example, how the mechanical advantage was the ratio of the wheel’s radius to the axle’s radius. I would also remember how much wheels and axles are used in life. Examples of wheels and axles are door knobs, ferris wheels and record players.