Thoughts and musings of Peter Kupfer

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  • Using the Red Bull Stratos Space Jump in Physics Class…

    Posted on by Peter Kupfer 1 Comment

    When I heard that a man, Felix Baumgartner, was going to jump from space I was intrigued at how I can use this in class. It is one of the unique teachable moments that comes each year that as a teacher you need to capitalize on. It is one reason I am grateful to work in a district that doesn’t have a lock step teaching mentality, so I can diverge when needed.

    In any event, I searched most of Sunday night for someone that had posted data of the fall and was unsuccessful, so I created some myself. I started with this video:

    And watched him fall. I noted that after about 20 seconds of falling the speeds were displayed on screen. The speeds updated at .5 HZ (2/second) and I plotted the data. The data is as complete as the video allowed and I hope Red Bull posts the rest of the data, including altitude, later. I typed into a program called Graph (which is a free ware program I highly recommend and can be downloaded here.) I also put it into an Excel file to share with others which you can find at the end of the post.

    In addition, one of my colleagues found on-line someone who had recorded all of the ascent data and we also put that into Excel and made a graph of the ascent.

    You can see that the velocity graph curves, which awesome because we so rarely have a chance to graph a real work changing acceleration, or the jerk. So, we then created a very simple worksheet to use in class today along with the video to spark a discussion. If I wanted to spend more time on this activity I could have had the kids collect the data, but that wasn’t something I wanted to invest time in today.

    Here is a copy of the worksheet if you wish to use it.

    Red Bull Space Jump Analysis Sheet

    Jump Worksheet (PDF)

    Jump Worksheet (ODT)

    Here also is a copy of the raw data if you want to work with it.

    Excel File - Red Bull Stratos Data

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  • Classroom Management Apps for the iPad

    Posted on by Peter Kupfer Comment

    Today someone on the physics modeling list serv asked for an app for a tablet with the following abilities:

    • Allow me to create a seating chart showing student names and photos.
    • For each student, I could click the photo and get a drop-down menu with user-created options (mine would be “on task,” “off task,” and “Notes”–the notes button would open an editing box where I could type notes).
    • Each time a mark/comment was made, the date and time of the comment would be recorded in the database.
    • I could then generate reports periodically with a summary of how many times each student received each mark.
    • It would be nice if I could export points earned into a text file for importing into my grading program.

    Two other important requirements that I realized after starting my research were that I wanted to be able to import my class lists from a csv file and I needed to be able to separate the classes by period as opposed to one long list.

    I had wanted a similar application for my iPad, but I hadn’t really put any effort into finding one. So, I set out to evaluate the different classroom management type apps for the iPad.

    As I started investigating I found that there were couple of themes categories that the apps fit into:

    • Random Picker/Seating Chart Apps — There are several apps that are designed to just pick students at random from your class list.
    • Just Attendance Apps — Several of these apps are just for attendance taking and possible seating charts.
    • Behavior Tracking — Not necessarily designed for grades but usually for attendance and also student behavior and consequences.
    • Full Grade Book/Management Apps — These apps includes the features of the others and then also function as grade books. They vary by the grade level they seemed designed for.

    Random Picker/Seating Chart Apps

    Pupil Picker was the first random picker app that I came across. It has a very simple interface and serves one purpose, to randomly pick students to answer questions in class. Pupil Picker wins some points because it offers a free version to test. In using that free version one drawback I found was that you could not import a class list from a csv file or from a spreadsheet. The author says that you can bring the students in if they are in a group in your contacts, but I don’t have any groups in my contacts and for some reason I can’t currently open my contacts, so I can’t test that. Another nice feature is that it allows you to mark whether the student answered the question correctly or not. This could work for the purpose of monitor productivity in a lab, but you can only pull the student up at random, you can’t pick a student from the list which would make monitor productivity difficult at times. Ultimately, this app does what it says and it seems to do it well.


    Attendance Apps

    Attendance is an app that is simply designed for taking attendance. The app costs $5, which seems excessive for just taking attendance when there are some cheaper alternatives, so I didn’t test it. The description says that you can important class lists and export the attendance data back out to a spreadsheet via iTunes or Dropbox. The program supports pictures and allows you to select random students to answer questions. You can see a video of the app here.

    Smart Seat is an app that takes attendance, but its true calling is as your a seating chart making app. I have long wanted a program that would make a random seating chart for any OS and this app does this simply. I like to change seats every unit, so the geek in me wishes that it had the ability to save the old seating charts for comparison and I would be ecstatic if it kept track of who a student sat next to before and tried to randomize with that as a constraint, but that is probably a bit much. The official website says that you can import students names from a csv file but the app doesn’t support pictures. The app allows you keep different charts for each section or your course and to select a random student to call on. If you are just looking for attendance and random student selection, this app looks cleaner and is cheaper than Attendance.


    Behavior Tracking Apps

    I tried to evaluate Teacher’s Toolkit by downloading the free lite version, but it crashed repeatedly on me.

    Full Grade Book/Management Apps

    TeacherPal at this point is the app that comes closest to the requirements stated above (plus it is free). With TeacherPal you can import your class list using a simple comma separated value (csv) file or add them manually. You can also add a picture to each student from your saved picture folder. Once you have set up your class, you can easily make a searing chart for your students by clicking on their face until it wiggles (like moving an app on your home screen) and putting it in place. You can add a picture of each student (as shown below) and you can then click on the student’s face in the seating chart to mark them absent. Additionally, TeacherPal has a simple and simple to use gradebook for recording scores. The gradebook can be export to a csv and into a spreadsheet for merging into other desktop electronic gradebooks.

    Creating a Student in Teacher Pal Setting a seating chart in Teacher Pal

    Teacher’s Attaché – This seems like a nice app that takes attendance and does something with grades. The app is more geared towards a college classroom, in that it lacks a seating chart, so I didn’t invest the $5 to evaluate it. However, from the reviews, it would seem that this is a pretty nice app for college professors.

    Teacher Tool One — Sounds like a great app, but it seems almost too powerful and with too many features. In work with the free version, I had a hard time completing simple tasks and determining how to assign grades and work with students. It seems to be written for a German school system and that it would integrate with some other kind of SMS. For a price tag of $30 for the full version, it seems like overkill for what I am looking for.

    Teacher Assistant Lite — This application seems more designed for elementary education or special education teachers. The students can not be arranged by group or period. The application seems best suited to tracking behaviors as opposed to tracking grades or students participation in a class on a single day.

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  • American Idol Power Rankings — April 7th, 2011

    Posted on by Peter Kupfer Comment

    After correctly predicting last weeks two eliminating contestants I’m going for two weeks in a row. With Naima gone, I can honestly say there are no more bad contestants left, just different levels of quality. Honestly, I’m really lost tonight as there were no big bombs last night. I think between the top 4 it is a toss up at this point. I give James the edge because he knows who he is and is extremely talented and that really helps down the home stretch.

    1. 1. James Durbin (4) — Like I wrote above, I give James the edge here because he knows what kind of artist he wants to be and he is able to focus on refining his craft. He has consistently great performances and even this week when he took a different approach to the song, he still delivered and showed a new side to his artistry.
    2. 2. Pia Toscano (3) — She made an attempt at singing an upbeat ballad and delivered. She really wants to sing ballads and doesn’t seem to want to “lower” herself to singing fast songs. That would maybe be enough if she engaged the audience more and was true star. I really wished she would interact with the crowd more by moving right and left on the stage. But, she has two things going for her: she has a great voice and is very attractive.
    3. 3. Casey Abrams (1) — Casey is a great artist, but he has changed since he was almost eliminated. He is taking it safer and trying to be popular. I can’t blame him, since he doesn’t want to get eliminated. I hope he finds a happy balance as it comes down to crunch time.
    4. 4. Jacob Lust (2) — I don’t understand the love fest with Jacob. He has a big range, but doesn’t seem to be able to hone it in and sing seriously. He is a getting a little cocky, and I am starting to not like him.
    5. 5. Scotty McCreery (7) — Good singer and it was a nice to see him try something new, but he is still in a slightly different category than the other four. He needs to work out some of his facial expressions.
    6. 6. Lauren Alaina (5)– I really like her and think she has tremendous potential. She still looks her age when she sings and looks a little scared and nervous on stage. As she progresses I hope that wear off.
    7. 7. Paul McDonald (9) —Great performance this week and he is growing on me. I think he has a place in the music world, but in terms of this contest, he is not one of the best singers.
    8. 8. Stefano Langone (6) — He has had a lot of good performances of late, but he just doesn’t have a strong enough voice to pull off some of the more aggressive songs. Other seasons he might have been in the top 5, but not this year.
    9. 9. Haley Reinhart (8) — I think she have finally figured out who she is as a singer, but it may be too late. She is talented, but not as talented as the rest.
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  • Angry Birds & Physics

    Posted on by Peter Kupfer 2 Comments

    For a while I have been trying to think of ways to incorporate Rovio’s fantastic game Angry Birds into my physics class. On twitter today a tweet sent me to the Sweeny Math blog to a post about using Geogebra to analyze Angry Birds. In short Mr. Sweeny had his students analyze the trajectory of an Angry Birds launch (I think he must have done a screen shot post launch) and then let Geogebra find the curve fit of the line. Now, I have been working Geogebra this year and really find that it is a powerful program for analyzing mathematical systems, but I don’t know that it is best tool for analyzing an Angry Birds video.

    For analyzing video in class (and for fun) we use a freeware program called Tracker. Tracker is a pretty amazing program especially considering software of this quality can cost a lot of money and still not be as good as Tracker is. I didn’t really have a project in mind, so I decided to jump into this analysis as an open-ended question which are becoming all the rage in science classes. So, I went to YouTube to download an Angry Birds video. (I downloaded the video using Easy YouTube Video Downloader which is a FireFox Add-On.)

    The basic premise of Tracker is that you click on a spot of an object for every frame of a video and Tracker than turns the grid of the video into an x-y coordinate plane and can compute the displacement and velocity of an object. Here is how the Tracker screen looked after I finished clicking:

    Angry Birds Image with Tracks

    So, now I wanted to get some data. This is where Tracker is awesome.

    Angry Birds Launch xvt & yvt

    Angry Birds Launch Vx v t & Vy v t

    So, these graphs show the shapes and relationships that we would expect from a projectile launch: Constant velocity in the x-direction and acceleration in the y-direction. However, now, I wanted to do some analysis of the accuracy of the program. So, from here I was going to treat this first video as a control and assume that it was correct. In order for Tracker to return numerical data the scale of the video has to be set so that the program knows how “large” each pixel should be.

    I tried to find an object in the video that would always be the same and so I settled on one of the yellow birds. I adjusted the size of the bird until the slope of the Vy v. t graph was -9.81 which should the acceleration of gravity.

    Angry Birds -- Define the Schale with the Yellow Bird Angry Birds - Vy v t Graph for Yellow Bird

    In order to test if other objects on the screen would follow the same behavior, I tracked the motion of one of the falling pigs.


    Angry Birds -- Falling Big Angry Birds -- Vy v t -- Falling Pig

    So, the acceleration of the pig was the same as the yellow bird, so it seems to work out.

    From here I’m not sure where I would go next, one problem I can see is that depending on the zoom of the level I don’t know if I could use the same size of the yellow bird consistently between videos. I think if I could zoom in the closest level in each video in the game then I could use the yellow bird size across videos. After writing this post, I found that A Professor of Physics at Southeastern Louisiana University tackled this same issue and came to similar conclusions, but didn’t really provide any revelations into the issue of zooming in on the bird. He did remind me Tracker’s ability to track motion of a panning video, which may help since all of the Rovio videos on YouTube start with the default zoom. He did try to include a little more quantitative analysis in his second Angry Bird’s analysis, but made the assumptions as before. (In case you haven’t seen enough, here is a similar analysis of Super Mario Brothers.)

    The next experiment I want to try is to determine the mass of the birds. This video wouldn’t work well for it, but if you could assume the density of the rock barriers and then find the volume (find the height and width using the scale and the assume the depth) then you could find the mass of the rock barriers and using the conservation of momentum you could find the mass of the bird. I am sure there are other ways to go, but that would be a fun start.

    Here is the final result:

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  • The Gulf Oil Spill, Blinky, and Leading by Example…

    Posted on by Peter Kupfer Comment

    I heard a funny quote today:

    http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20100802/NEWS02/8020311/BP-exec-I-would-serve-Gulf-fish-to-my-family

    BP exec: I would serve Gulf fish to my family | montgomeryadvertiser.com | Montgomery Advertiser via kwout

    In case you wanted to hear it yourself, here is the man himself:

    I was reminded of the classic Simpson’s episode Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish where Mr. Burn’s is running for governor and Marge serves him a three eyed fish, Blinky, from the run off pond by his plant. He proceeds to spit the fish across the table and promptly loses the election.

    Blinky the Fish from The SimpsonsSo, while I appreciate that Doug Skuttles is willing to but money where his mouth is, I hope he is ready for some smart mother to make him eat his words.

    PS — Please clean up the oil and reimburse my country. Thanks.

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  • Top 9 Power Rankings: 04/07/10

    Posted on by Peter Kupfer Comment

    After American Idol’s Lennon and McCartney my rankings haven’t change much. We are at the point in the season where the cream rises to top and being a good singer is not longer enough. All of the contestants need to step it up if they are going to survive.

    1) (1) Crystal Bowersox — Crystal had another solid performance, but she needs to take it to then next level if she wants to stay on top.
    2) (2) Casey James — Strong performer taking risks, if he takes a few more big risks and they pay off he could take it all.
    3) (4) Lee DeWyzee — Judges and fans love him as he comes out of his shell and gains confidence.
    4) (3) Michael Lynche — Had kind of weird interpretation of the song this week and is having trouble breaking out of doing the same thing every week.
    5) (5) Aaron Kelly –  Did a nice job and is a talented individual, a few more years under his belt and he should be a star.
    6) (7) Katie Stevens — Had one of, if not her best performance. This should keep her around, but she has a lot of work to do.
    7) (6) Tim Urban — In a competition with six other boys his good vocals and pretty smile may not be enough with the safe song choices he is making.
    8) (9)  Siobhan Magnus — Had another odd week. Her big notes are not going to be enough to keep her around if she can’t put together a solid performance.
    9) (8) Andrew Garcia — His time may be up, he can sing okay, but his songs sound the same each week and he isn’t really growing.

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  • Thoughts after State…

    Posted on by Peter Kupfer Comment

    Again, I was asked by a reported some questions after the state tournament.

    – What are your thoughts on the team’s performance at the State Meet this weekend?

    It is tough to put the whole experience in perspective. We were pretty happy after Friday finishing in 9th only 327 out of first. We knew it was going to be a tough climb, but we knew we could do it. Then on Saturday morning we bowled our best 3 game series of the tournament but we still dropped a place to 10th. That was fine, we set our goals on 6th and moved forward, but then we kind of unraveled and dropped down to 12th. As I said, it is tough to put in perspective because you are in last place on the second day of state, but then you have to remember that only 12 teams in the state made the second day of state and you realize what an awesome accomplishment it is and then you look at the individual successes inside the larger team and you realize that it truly was an amazing weekend that I or the boys will never forget.

    My main goal going in to the tournament was to get to Saturday and then see where we could go from there. So, in that sense the weekend was very successful. The boys were focused all weekend and really gave their all. After entering Saturday in 9th place we were hoping to move up in the standings, but it was a tough field with several quality schools. I was pleased with the determination the boys showed through all 12 games never giving up and fighting until the end.

    – What were some of the highlights for you guys?

    There are several pieces of the weekend that will always stand out to me. The first was the support we got from the parents. We had a fairly large contingent follow us down to state, and it meant a lot that there will willing to take the long trip to O’Fallon. On Friday in game 6 we were right on the bubble between advancing and being cut and the boys needed a big game, we were going strong through the first 8 frames and we were in good shape. Then, unexpectedly, the fan section starting chanting, “Let’s go Bears, Let’s go Bears…” and it was really awesome. This encouragement pushed the boys forward and we bowled our best game of the day (1039). The chants from the crowd gave me goosebumps and really made the day.
    Another highlight is the performance of the seniors, Luke Mueller and Austin Wells. Both days Luke started out with a rough score (159 Fri and 148 Sat) but finished very strong. (1266 on Friday and 1211 Sat) he didn’t let the bad first game get him down and he kept fighting through. He was also always clapping and cheering on his team mates even when he was worried about his own game, which I really appreciate that he was able to put his own frustrations aside for the good of the team.

    Austin’s performance was also inspiring. He has been battling with tendinitis since winter break and been fighting through the pain. On Friday morning his medication was not agreeing with his system and he just felt a little off leading to an uncharacteristically low (155) game 2. In the afternoon, after eating some lunch and letting the medication settle, he was back in good form finishing with a strong game 5 (266) and a 672 series for the afternoon. Then, on Saturday Austin was our rock. He decided to forgo medication and tough through the pain. In the morning most of the boys were clicking and bowling well which lead to our team’s high series (3052) but we still dropped a place to 10th with Austin finishing with a 622. In the afternoon as the team started to unravel, Austin was steady as a rock with only one open in the last two games and finishing with a 642 series and taking 28th place with a 2485 tournament total (207.1 avg). This makes him the highest finishing Lake Zurich Boy’s bowler in school history. It was really nice to see Austin achieve this since he has been our team leader for the last two years and to see all of his dedication to the bowling team really pay off.

    Finally, the total team effort that the boys showed throughout the weekend very gratifying to me. It is difficult to instill the team concept in what is perceived by many as an individual sport, but the boys really came together as a group. When we had to substitute kids in and out to try and find the right mix no one got down or upset. The boys were constantly trying to help each other make adjustments and they were constantly encouraging each other. The leadership of Kyle Hunter, much like at sectionals, really helped us on the first day to keep from getting discouraged in the tight competition, he was always setting the expectation that we were going to do better each game, and that paid off.

    – I believe Austin Wells reached the state tournament last year as an individual, how much do you think that helped him this time around?

    Austin learned a lot last year in terms of how to adjust to the lane conditions as the broke down. The state oil pattern is still a house shot, but it is a slightly different house shot than what these boys play on all year. This isn’t as much of a problem in the early goings as it is as they break down. Austin saw this last year as he was barely eliminated after the first day because he was not able to string together his strikes. That experience gave him motivation to make his game more versatile and we can see that it paid off this year. Austin has never been one to be affected by the pressure of the moment, but I still think having been in that state environment last year helped he keep a cool head this year.

    – Could you list how the rest of the team did at State?

    Luke Mueller was 44th with a 2426
    Steve Garcia was 45th with a 2407

    Those were the only 3 who bowled all 12 games.

    Here is a link to the results from Saturday, http://www.ihsa.org/activity/bwb/2009-10/1result2.htm and Friday, http://www.ihsa.org/activity/bwb/2009-10/1result1.htm.

    – Can you put in perspective the season the team had this year?
    This was the first year since my first were we had a full varsity team (5 or 6 kids who could average 200+). We had no seniors last year and only 2 two years ago, so we have been building to this for several years. Last year when we didn’t advance out of sectionals after winning the conference we said, wait til next year and all year we talked about how this is our year and the boys performed up that expectation. They won two large, competitive tournaments (Cougar Classic & Plainfield North Invite) and finished in the top 5 the last 5 weeks of the season. (Morgan Park, Rockford PBA Experience, Plainfield, Lake Zurich, Sectionals). With the 12th place finish at state this is the most successful team in Lake Zurich Boy’s Bowling history.

    On top of that we are only losing two members of the Varsity squad (Mueller and Wells) for next year and we have some underclassman that have made a lot of progress in the past year. After the 2006-07 state trip, most of that team graduated, so the lessons learned from state where not passed on. This year, I am hoping that the returning members will take what they learned from this experience and use it to motivate and drive them forward as we work in the off-season.

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