My Lyfe My Way! - My Writings

Post Title.

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:36:39 +0700

Tai Le

P.E. 2, Bruno

May 30, 2008

What Does Fit Mean To Me?

If someone were to ask me about what fitness means to me a year or two ago, I would reply “being skinny”. But going through Physical Education this wasn’t just running around and around this year. This year we learned about how to play certain sports and what the rules and regulations for the sports were. In my opinion now, I would define being fit is as keeping the body fit and using the Health-Related Components of Fitness DAILY. The top component of fitness that I think I would use the most (in my opinion) is cardiovascular, muscular endurance, and muscular strength. How? Simple everyday activities in example, for me, walking up stairs as a student aid, or walking home from school. Therefore, fitness means keeping the whole body healthy.

            First, I would like to take the chance to talk about my Push Up scores, and how they compare with the National Standards for the average Push up Scores. My first score was for the early test which was zero push ups. The mid-term score was 1 push ups which was a good improvement. Then our final test came, and I was able to accomplish two push ups. The National Standard for average push up score is 23 push ups under one minute. How does that compare with my three scores? I really need to improve on my push up numbers because the difference is huge! If I had to compare my scores from my early scores to the Finals score, I had improved a bit. I rose from zero push ups to 2 push ups. I think the reason for such low scores is because my body is larger than average boys. My legs tend to be hard for me to accomplish a push ups. I definitely have plans to reach my goal of heading towards the National Standards for average push ups.

            Second, my sit scores were very close in reaching the Average National Standards for boys. My early score was 22 sit ups under one minute. Mid-Terms came around, and I dropped to 16 sit ups under minute. When Finals for the fitness scores came, I earned a higher score which was 27 sit ups under one minute. How did this compare? My last score was 11 sit ups from reaching the average score. So for now, I am weak at my sit ups. I had improved from the beginning of P.E. by starting at 22 sit ups to 27 sit ups. Except when we had Mid-Terms, I had dropped my score from 22 sit ups to 16 sit ups. What happened? I am only guessing, but I think that that day I wasn’t paying attention to P.E. and my mind was focused on something else while P.E. mid-terms were taking place.

            Last, I am going to take this time to talk a little bit about my three scores for the 12 minute run. For the early test score, I received a .87 miles. Then when mid-terms came around, I had dropped my distance to .82 miles in 12 minutes. My last score was a huge improvement for me. I received .97 miles under 12 minutes. How does my scores compare with the National Standards for men under the fair category? The national standard for men under the fair category is 1.38 miles in 12 minutes. My score are a lot below that national standard. I was able to improve every time from starting with a .87 miles in 12 minutes to .97 miles in 12 minutes. With the scores I, myself received, I feel really proud about how far I have gone. The reason that I may have been unable to reach the National Standard is because overall, I tend to run on the straight lines of the lap, and fast walk on the curved lines. Many people who received a higher score than me ran most of the 12 minutes.

            If I were to specify which test fell into which Skill-Related Components of Fitness, I would say that our push up tests fell into the muscular strength category. The push up tests required a lot of upper body strength, and you would do it for short periods of time. The Merriam Webster Defines push ups as “a conditioning exercise performed in a prone position by raising and lowering the body with the straightening and bending of the arms while keeping the back straight and supporting the body on the hands and toes”. As you can see, the Merriam Webster defines push ups as bending the arms while making sure that your back is straight. How frequent should you perform push ups? In my opinion you should perform push ups twice a day, and 6-7 times a week, and your duration should go for 1 minute minimum. In conclusion, you can see that push ups require muscular endurance, in balancing your body and “pushing” your body for the exercise, push ups.

            I believe that the sit up tests would have to fall under the muscular endurance in the Skill-Related Components of Fitness. Why? The exercise requires your muscles being able to work for periods of time, with less resistance acting on your body. Your frequency for push ups would have to be 2-3 times a day, and 6-7 times a week, and duration should be no less then 1 minute. I find that it helps while doing push ups, you have your hands on your shoulders, and “sit-up” having your elbows touch your knees. The term repetition also comes in mind when you talk about sit ups because with repetition, you are able to strengthen your abdominal muscles (many tend to say abs) and also your hip flexors. With progression, you will be able to develop a consistency in being able to change your duration up higher.

            Lastly, we have our 12 minute run which I believe falls under the Cardiovascular Endurance category of the Skill-Related Components of Fitness. Cardiovascular Endurance, to me, would have to be the ability, or power to endure; continue general physical effort for long periods of time. Many people consider two factors that can lead to helping for receive a farther distance. They are, aerobic, and anaerobic. Aerobic is exercise with oxygen, while anaerobic is exercise without oxygen. Ever wonder why after you sprint, your body is gasping for air? That’s because sprinting is a form of anaerobic, using less air, and body sugar. While aerobic is jogging, and using oxygen, while using your body fat metabolisms instead of body sugar. I found that with progression in continuously jogging; get the body to adapt the “lifestyle” of jogging for long periods of time. Your frequency for jogging should be 1-2 times a day, 5-6 times a week, and your duration can go from 12 minutes to one hour.

            What are my goals in being able to reach the national standards for each exercise? For push ups, I need to reach at least 23 push ups in one minute. How? I can start by practicing every day at home. The intensity should be low, meaning that whether it’s knees on the ground, or pushing down further from the ground. If I am able to accomplish that everyday, I’ll be able to reach my goal of 23 push ups in 1 minute. My practice should be 1-2 times everyday, and 5-6 times a week. I also think that being a lot less in body fat, and more built in muscular strength will help me reach my push up goals, so incorporating cardiovascular endurance to my exercise is vital. I think that improvement of my score for sit ups is very crucial. If I am unable to reach 38 sit ups in one minute, how am I able to be healthy, and fit? So I think that working on sit ups along with a friend, or family member is critical to achieving a higher score than my current sit up score. With that is mind, continuously doing sit ups 1-2 times a day, and 6-7 times a week will help me build abdominal muscles and maybe even reach above average in my 1 minute sit up test. I think that my jogging scores in one minute can reach a higher score by keep working on that goal everyday. If I go to the gym, or just go running around the neighborhood for half an hour I will be able to build the progression towards receiving a longer distance in 12 minutes. Not only is my body adapting to the jogging, it’s being able healthy in Cardiovascular Endurance. With these goals, I’ll be able to be under the average and good category for the National Standards!

            What have I learned this year, and just sitting here, typing away? When I look view my lifestyle right now, I find that it needs to change. From being able to progress everyday in P.E., I’ve learned the importance of daily exercise, and how it helps my body (a lot). I enjoy the feeling or adrenaline that your body receives after jogging. It’s a huge rush that I get from sweating on the track. Not only in jogging vital, but exercises such as sit ups help the abdominal muscles grow, and also helps your hip flexors (which are needed in life). I found that warm ups in P.E. are crucial before a jog, or sprint, or game, because you don’t want to strain a muscle, or hurt your body during a game. I conclusion (finally!), fitness means that my body is receiving more than enough exercises and activities that helps my body grow, and be able to exceed the national standards for fitness training. Those are the reasons why I want to continue being healthy.

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Water Rockets

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:19:49 +0700

Name: Tai Le

Class: Intro to Digital Technology

Date: June 2, 2008

Water Rocket Research Findings

Vocabulary Terms: Use NASA’s journey into rocketry website (http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/BottleRocket/journey.htm) to find the definitions of each of the terms below. Please write in complete sentences.

Stability :
The capacity of a vessel to return to its original position after having been displaced by external forces. The stability of a vessel depends on the meta-centric height.

Center of mass :
The average location of the weight of the rocket. The mass and weight are distributed throughout the rocket, and for some problems, it is important to know the distribution.

Center of pressure :
The aerodynamic forces act through a single point.

Lift :
Lift depends on the density of the air, the square of the velocity, the air's viscosity and compressibility, the surface area over which the air flows, the shape of the body, and the body's inclination to the flow.

Drag
“The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force and inversely proportional to its mass.” This can be expressed in equation form:

Thrust
Thrust is the force which moves the rocket through the air, and through space.

Newton’s 2nd Law

“The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force and inversely proportional to its mass.” This can be expressed in equation form:

Force = (Mass) x (Acceleration)

Newton’s 3rd Law
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Momentum
The product of mass and velocity, a quantity or measure of motion that is conserved in physical systems where no external forces are acting. For example, a body of moving air can only lose speed or change direction by transferring momentum to its surroundings (other air masses, landforms, vegetation, and so on).

Nozzle
A rocket engine uses a nozzle to accelerate hot exhaust to produce thrust as described by Newton's third law of motion. A nozzle is a relatively simple device, just a specially shaped tube through which hot gases flow.

Propulsion
The action of pushing or driving, usually forward or onward.

Weight
Weight is the force generated by the gravitational attraction on the rocket.

Questions: Answer a minimum of 2 of the 3 questions below writing in complete sentences and in your own words (don’t just copy text from the website).

Note: answer all 3 questions correctly for 25 bonus points

1.      What are the main ways to create a stable rocket?

A rocket demands that it have these three features to create a stable rocket.

1. The nose cone.
2. The fairing (a ‘skirt’ that goes around the nozzle).
3. The fins.

These features keep the bottle rockets to become stable, and can also help affect “drag”.

2.      What does Newton’s 2nd law have to do with rockets?

This means that for a bottle rocket, its acceleration depends (or is directly proportional) to its mass or amount of water that you use.

3.      What does Newton’s 3rd law have to do with rockets?

To simplify Newton’s 3rd law, “What goes up, must come down”. Basically this relates to bottle rockets because once the bottle rockets are shot up, they must come down, showing that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.

Building A Catapult

Thu, 29 May 2008 07:01:26 +0700

Tai Le

Intro To Digital Technology

May 26, 2008

Catapult Reflection

What was the challenge?

Our challenge for this project was to be able to build a catapult made from PVC pipes, and would initially work as a real catapult would. The catapult would have to be able to go through obstacles that our teacher had planned out. The requirements for the building of the catapults in general were that it had to have no more the 14 inches maximum in length, 8 inches maximum in width, and 18 inches maximum in height. Our materials that we had to use to build our catapult included 10 inches or PVC pipes, 4 Tees, 6 elbows (PVC pipes), 1 Slip Tee. All of the materials that we were given we made from PVC pipes, or as many people would say, plastic. When my teacher announced that we would have to build a catapult and have it go through obstacles, I felt very excited. In my mind I was thinking, “Hey! This shouldn’t be that hard. I mean, I had to build a catapult out of wood in 7th grade! No biggy”. Little did I know what challenges laid ahead for me.

What was your design?

When we designed that catapult, I contributed to the layout of the catapult when we had to hand them in to our teacher. My partner contributed the “spunkyness” to the group, and she helped pitch in when we were cutting the PVC pipes. Although her fear of knives and PVC cutters was an obstacle, I’m glad she was there to help out. The main layout of our catapult was that it’s width, and length were exactly 8 inches wide, and 14 inches long. Our base used 4 Tees to hold together the “catapult stop” and the PVC section that held onto the catapult. Our arm was about 16 inches in total length when attached with or catapult. We had drilled two holes in the PVC pipe to place our two thick, and two skinny rubber bands in the holes for more resistance when the arm was pulled back. Well for the catapult to “shoot”, I would have to pull the arm back, and my partner would step on the catapult so the catapult wouldn’t bend back by the force on the arm. Initially we didn’t plan for a stopper to stop the arm when it was pulled back, so my partner and I had to go back, and change our layout of the catapult, in order to stop the catapult arm. We made a stopper about 6 by 6 inches was placed 2.5 inches from the catapult arm so when the arm was pulled back, the stopper would stop the arm from going any further. We found that without the arm, our catapult would shoot straight into the ground, and not go any distance at all.

How was the construction phase?

On my team, my partner and I both contributed in cutting the PVC pipes whether it’s holding the pipe in place, or even cutting the pipes. When the parts were all cut, we decided that I would assemble that parts, and my partner would watch me assemble and note if I had any deficiency in my assembling. Problems that we encountered? Never trust your drawing layout to be exactly the length, width, and height it promised. When we completed building our catapult, it was too long, so we had to shorten a few more parts. Not only was our paper lying to us, but we forgot to place a stopper in our catapult to stop the arm from going any further. Like I said earlier, our catapult matched our drawing about 80% of the time. I thought I would have been deducted points for changing anything on the catapult, so I drew out another layout of the catapult, and showed or teacher. We really had to changed part of our catapult because like I said earlier, it was missing a stopper, and if we did not have that crucial part, our catapult’s arm would be throwing objects straight into the ground. Our scale drawing was very useful because we referred back to it many times when about to cut our PVC pipes. We needed the drawing to know how many pieces or PVC pipes we were to cut, or what the length in cutting that PVC pipe was. Changes to our catapult included adding a stopper, and reducing down the catapult to fit the requirements.

On The Balcony: Summary

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:50:09 +0700

On The Balcony

Status: Working On It!

This story is a modern version of William Shakespear's "Romeo & Juliet". All I have now, is a start ot the story.

Here's the 2 main character BIO:

Full Name: Justin Pelletier

Nickname: None

Race: Asian/German

Birthday: July 24th

Age: 15

Eye Color: Blue

Weight & Height: 135 Lbs, 5'7"

Now this is the main character of the Girl:

Full Name: Brianna Allard

Nickname: Bree

Race: American/Hawaiian

Birthday: September 18

Age: 15

Eye Color: Hazel

Weight & Height: 115 Lbs, 5'5"