Dana's Blog: Math Blog Post

This Class
Today, we worked on finalizing our equation and testing higher heights. In the beginning of the class we worked on at what point the third rubber band would hit. We stacked more books on top of where the rubber band #2 hit (Book 7) and used a trial and error method. We came up with a conclusion then established an equation for it. Our equation may not be fully correct but it's still something. Our equation was RB = (h - 12) / 8 then all of that subtracted by two. We then went outside and tested heights that were much larger than a couple of books on a desk. We tested out our equation, but then we realized that we missed a component so we added to the equation (the minus two) . Furthermore, we tried only two heights yet with the new equation it worked fine, though we still need to finalize.

Our Big Find
The equation that we established as the final equation was a large finding for us. It worked really well, and we are proud of it. Though we do need to test it a few more times, it is allowing the barbie to reach very close to the ground without touching it which is great.

Our problem
I think this class we didn't work as efficiently as we could've. All the other groups were working hard and going outside while we were still in the same position as the last class, which isn't good. The overall group dynamic of our groups isn't working, which is strange because each of us are friends. I think because we aren't ready, therefore I will stay after school on Tuesday to finalize our project, and hopefully it will work better.

Next Class
Regarding next class, I am very nervous. I don't believe my group is ready to do such a large task, especially since it is a summative assessment. As I said before I will stay after school to fix it and finalize it. I do believe over the days that we worked on this project, if we worked better we wouldn't have been in this situation, but you cannot go back in time. You have to move and try to do the best you can.

This is a trial we did in the classroom.

UPDATE - After School Lauren, Will, and I stayed after school because we felt as if we were very behind on our project. We got our barbie and many rubber bands and went to Mr. Oksness's class since he had tape measurers. When we got there we didn't find him, but we found another group that had a tape measure. While we were waiting, Lauren was problem solving different ways of coming up with an equation, while making a data table. During Lauren was doing this, Will and I were testing out our previous equation with different heights in the classroom. Each time (we did about 3 trials), the older equation would work. Lauren then found a new pattern through her work and developed the idea to make a new equation. We tried it many times but the answer would change every time we added a new number. We were only using two of the trials we did, when we should've plugged in more. It was definitely an unreliable equation that we would never use. We talked to other people from other groups, and they said they found their equation by creating a linear function. We then added more of our trials into a graphing calculator, and came to an equation. At first, we thought it wouldn't work but after trying it multiple times it worked perfectly. The new equation was y = .11x - 2.3. Therefore we had two different equations that worked perfectly. I am feeling so much better about this project and I cannot wait to show off our barbie tomorrow in class!