S’more | Stoichiometry

Have you had s’more before? What was it like? Was it good?

If you (like me) didn’t know what the heck it is, it is an amazing campfire snack in North America (according to Google) but as a Cambodian, I had never heard of or taste it before. Yet, last week in my Chemistry class, we did a S’more Lab to further our understanding and knowledge about limiting reactants (and get to taste it for the first time).

We were given Graham crackers (Gc), marshmallow (M), chocolate piece (Cp) to make our own s’more. During the lab, we were required to balance out the equation and figure out limiting and excess reactants as well as calculate the experimental and theoretical yield. I have such a great time with my team doing the lab, by the way.

2Gc + M + 3CP → Gc2MCp3

This lab, not only it’s a lot of fun, but it had helped me to better understand about experimental and theoretical yield since I wasn’t sure on how to apply it into real life. Overall, I had such an incredible time do the lab and be able to learn about limiting reactants and make our own s’more. Yum! Yum!

October 4, 2018October 4, 2018

The Exceptional Trailblazer

My engineering seminar this year was very inspiring since my new facilitator had greatly persuaded me to be interested in the engineering field. One of the things that we had done for this round was researching about an influential engineer to understand their journey and their characteristic as an engineer. Below is my research paper about an exceptional engineer in the past…

Imagine if you were born to be a girl in the early 1900s, where meeting society expectation matter more than your own, what choice will you make? Follow society or yourself?

Historically, women were “confined to the home and expected to uphold traditional roles as a wife and mother.” They did not have the chance to discover or chase their dreams without receiving a reprimand.

Yet, by the start of the 20th century, there were 18.8% of women employed outside of the home as retail clerks, nurses, teachers, and typists—not as electrical engineers.

“I had always wanted to be an engineer, but felt that women were not supposed to be doing things like studying engineering.”

Continue reading “The Exceptional Trailblazer”

October 3, 2018October 4, 2018

Flame Test Lab

Everything is made of atoms!

We all know that the best way to start a chemistry course is by learning about atoms structure and the element in the periodic table. Well, for my chemistry class this round we did this one cool lab called the Flame Test, in the purpose of understanding how the electron(s) of an element reacts to heat.

We measured the result of the electron reaction through observing the color of the element when it’s in contact with flame. The reason that we see the colors is that of the energy that emitted by each electron when they excited corresponding to a wavelength of a particular light.

One of the challenges that my team faced was that some pieces of the element dropped onto the bunsen burner tip so we had to make sure that it clean at all cost when we tested another element. Furthermore, when we tested the potassium chloride, we didn’t see the color change of the flame, so we just assume that the electrons gave out orange, which it isn’t accurate at all. Subsequently, this was a really fascinating and fun lab to do!

November 14, 2017November 30, 2017

Physics….

At the beginning of November, my physics facilitator had given times for each and individual students to do research about “physics behind something.” I believe that all of us know what “physics” is since we all had learned about it. If not, Physics is the branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy, as defined by Google.

But the thing is, we can find physics everywhere in our everyday life….

‘Physics doesn’t just happen in a fancy lab — it happens when you push a piece of buttered toast off the table or drop a couple of raisins in a fizzy drink or watch a coffee spill dry’ ~ Helen Czerski

Tightrope Walkers’ Balancing Pole

As I mentioned above, I need to do research about “physics behind something.” So, as you can see my topic is about the balancing pole that the tightrope walkers used to perform their skill.

Continue reading “Physics….”

September 28, 2017October 25, 2017

The Multiverse

Img: http://www.newsweek.com/brian-greene-welcome-multiverse-64887

Have you ever thought of Earth 2 or Earth 11….or Earth 19072? One of the projects that I’ve done in my physics class was doing research about the Multiverse. The multiverse is a theory in which there is a set of possible or multiple of universes that we live in. It was such a fascinating topic to me since there were many physicists that tried to prove that theory in many interesting ways. For an example, Hugh Everett III, had proposed the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) in 1957 to support the idea of the multiverse. There is also Schrödinger’s cat experiment (the cat nor dead or alive), which explained the possibility that there might be other universes. After looking at many theories and experiments in proving the possibility of the existence of the multiverse, I still can’t make any judgment on whether or not the multiverse is real. I mean, if the multiverse is real, I won’t be unique anymore since there are the countless version of me in other universes. Another cool thing is that it also makes time travel possible.