Monday, February 27, 2012

Busy With 5S at School

5S is the name of workplace organization methodology that uses a list of 5 Japanese words which are seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu and shitsuke.

For the past one month, I had been busy with 5S implementation in my school. I have been given a task to become Person In Charged for three places in my school compound. No doubt, it affects my teaching ability at class. Besides 5S, I still need to carry out other responsibilities such as adviser for badminton and chess's club, form teacher job, head of science department, disciplinary work, school magazine, keying student's biodata  and checking stock items. Nearly forgotten, I have to prepare questions for Peperiksaan Penggal 1 examination this week!

Do not get me wrong! I am not lamenting about my jobs. In fact, 5S brings more benefits to my workplace.

The Benefits of 5S


  • Greater efficiency in achieving goals
  • Greater readiness for new tasks
  • Fewer hazards
  • Less spending on replacing lost or damaged items
  • Less stress
  • Greater self-esteem
  • More space

What I need to do is persevere. This is just a temporary set back to my teaching ability at class. I pray to God for his guidance and peace to go through this period. I give thanks to God for training me at this moment so that I am able to be a better leader in future. God wants me to be a HEAD and not a TAIL. So far, I have executed my responsibilities well. Glory be to God.

Thank you to my students for helping me doing 5S

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Physics Form 5: Chapter 1 - Loudness of Sound

2. Loudness - Amplitude


The loudness of a sound depends on the wave's amplitude.
The louder the sound, the higher the amplitude. So, amplitude is also a way of measuring the energy has.


The higher the energy, the higher the amplitude resulting a louder sound.


The system used to measure the loudness of sounds is the decibel system, given the unit dB.

Range (dB)
Description
Examples
0 - 30
Very Quiet
This is the threshold of human hearing, up to the sound of a quiet whisper.
31 - 50
Quiet
This is an average quiet house, with maybe the sound of a fridge running or someone moving around.
51 - 70
Normal
Regular daily sounds like people talking.
71 - 90
Loud
This is the point where a sound becomes annoying or distracting. Vacuums or a noisy car on a busy street are at these levels.
91 - 110
Very Loud
Most people will try to avoid being in areas this loud. Prolonged exposure can cause permanent ear damage. Temporary effects, like "stereo hiss", may happen.
111 +
Painful!!!
Even limited exposure to levels this high will cause permanent hearing loss.

Amplifier is a device to increase the loudness of sound by use of an external energy source. It drives the loudspeakers used in PA system to make the human voice louder.


Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Physics Form 5: Chapter 1 - Pitch of the Sound


Generally, there are three characteristics of sound:
  • frequency affects pitch of the sound
  • amplitude affects loudness of the sound
  • wave form affects quality of the sound
1. Frequency - Pitch



The frequency of a wave is measured as the number of complete vibrations of particles of a medium per unit time. A commonly used unit for frequency is Hertz.

Pitch is an auditory sensation in which listener assigns musical tones to relative positions on a musical scale based on the frequency of sound. A high pitch sound corresponds to a high frequency sound wave and low pitch sound corresponds to a low frequency sound wave.

Changing Pitch:

Click on the diagram below to play!


A string vibrates with a particular fundamental frequency. It is possible, however, to produce pitches with different frequencies from the same string. The four properties of the string that affect its frequency are length, diameter, tension, and density. These properties are described below:
  1. When the length of a string is changed, it will vibrate with a different frequency. Shorter strings have higher frequency and therefore higher pitch. 
  2. Diameter is the thickness of the string. Thick strings with large diameters vibrate slower and have lower frequencies than thin ones. 
  3. Tightening the string gives it a higher frequency while loosening it lowers the frequency. 
  4. The density of a string will also affect its frequency. Remember that dense molecules vibrate at slower speeds. The more dense the string is, the slower it will vibrate, and the lower its frequency will be. Instruments often have strings made of different materials. The strings used for low pitches will be made of a more dense material than the strings used for high pitches.


Name
Frequency Range (Hz)
Characteristics
0 - 20
Very low frequencies of sound that the human ear can’t detect, but you mayfeel the rumbling of the waves through your body.
Sonic (AKA Audio)
20 - 20 000
Normal range for human ears, although not everyone (especially the elderly) will hear to the extremes of this range.
20 000 +
Beyond normal hearing for humans, although some animals (like dogs) hear part ways into this range. Also used in medicine (e.g. ultrasounds for pregnant women).

Can you sing this high-pitched song?
Rest In Peace Whitney Houston

This page is dedicated to you on my lesson about the pitch of the sound. God really loves you and gives you the gift of high-pitched sound. Thanks for your song!


Saturday, February 11, 2012

Congrats to Kah Hooi

For the blind: Freedom teammates, Kah Hooi (right) and Bong Zheng Liang showing their safety cane which won them second prize for the Solar Energy Application Design category


I had taught Kah Hooi from Form 1 to Form 5. He was my former student of Physics, Chemistry and Add Maths. He scored 'A' in all the three subjects. I attribute his SPM success for his right attitude towards study. Today, I feel proud of him after learning that he won the first runner up prize for Solar Energy competition held at Heng Eee High School. Well Done! May God continue to bless you abundantly!

Extracted from The Star newspaper:

The Energy Saving Awards 2012 also saw another competition category — the Solar Energy Application Design Compe-tition. The first and second runners up went to teams Freedom and Solar Junior, both from Heng Ee High School.Tan Kah Hooi, 19, from team Freedom, said that they built a cane for the blind with safety features.
“The cane has in-built LED lights and an alarm,” he said.
“This is to help the blind to attract more attention if they are harmed or attacked,” he said.


Thursday, February 9, 2012

You Put Me in Shame, Thank You

Nicholas Vujicic came into the world in 1982 in Brisbane with neither arms nor legs. His parents were devastated when they saw their first born new baby for the first time. They worried about their son how he could make his way through life with such a massive disability.


Imagine being born without arms and legs, how he could live a normal happy life. He just no ability to dance, to run, to hold, to feel with his fingertips or even to hug his loved ones. What a tragic!


Throughout his childhood, he constantly questioned why he was different than all the other kids surrounding him; why he was the one born without legs and arms. He struggled with loneliness and depression.


He wondered what the purpose behind his life was. He then started to realize how God loved him so much in the past and gave him a vision to be a motivational speaker to encourage multitude of people in a religious and moving way. Nick said, " I found the purpose of my existence and also the purpose of my circumstance".


He has since traveled around the world speaking to millions of people, giving them inspiration, courage, and the hope he’s always dreamed of. If God can use a man without arms and legs to be His hands and feet, then He will certainly use any willing heart!”


A visitor at a school for the disabled was writing questions on the board for the children. Soon he wrote this sentence: " Why has God made me able to walk, hear and speak and made you disabled?" The shocking sentence hit the children like a cruel slap on the face. They sat paralyzed, pondering the dreadful word "Why?" And then a little girl arose.

With her lip trembling and her eyes swimming with tears, she walked straight to the board. Picking up the chalk, she wrote with a steady hand while limbing these precious words:


"Yes, God Father, for this was your good pleasure"


What a reply!


Chemistry Form 5: Chapter 1 - Effect of Concentration on Rate of Reaction

Experiment to show the effect of concentration on reaction rate


Sodium thiosulphate solution react with dilute sulphuric acid to form a yellow precipitate of sulphur. In this experiment, the time taken for the formation of sulphur to cover the mark 'X' until it disappears from sight can be used to measure rate of reaction.

As the concentration of sulphuric acid is increased, the rate of reaction between sulphuric acid and sodium thiosulphate increases.




Explanation using collision theory


·      When the concentration of the solution of a reactant increases, the number of particles per unit volume of the solution also increases.
·      With more particles per unit volume of the solution of the reactant, the frequency of collision increases.
·      This causes the frequency of effective collision to increase. Hence, the rate of reaction increases.


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Physics Form 4: Chapter 1 - Micrometer Screw Gauge


Ratchet exerts correct amount of pressure on the object to be measured. 


How to take reading from micrometer screw gauge?

Click on the diagram below to play!

Monday, February 6, 2012

Happy Chap Goh Meh 2012

What is the most interesting on Chap Goh Meh is the orange throwing event by the sea. Long time ago, as in 60 years ago maybe, the girls were not allowed out of their homes to mix with boys. However, on Chap Goh Meh, they were let out of the home and they would throw oranges and make wishes. In Hokkien, it goes something like “Tim kam, chua ho ang” or “Throw Mandarin orange, marry good husband. This festival is also regarded as the Chinese version of Valentine's Day.
Penangite usually will cook bubur cha cha on 15th day of Chinese New Year calender 



Chinese New Year is going to end soon. So, I wish you all  ‘天天好天’


Sunday, February 5, 2012

Life in 5 Bottles


  1. Milk bottle when we are in infant stage
  2. Soft drink bottle when we are in teen days. We like to partying while we still can.
  3. Liquor bottle when we enter working's life. 
  4. Mineral water bottle when are getting older.
  5. Lastly, we are getting sick and it is time to end our life with this terrified bottle.
It does not matter how we started our life. How we end our life is the most concern.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Chemistry Form 4: Chapter 2 - Rutherford Atomic Model

The Gold Foil Experiment

Rutherford bombarded a very thin leaf of element gold with a stream of high speed positively charged particles. These positively charged particles are alpha radiation from helium nuclei. 

As expected, most alpha particles went right through the gold foil but to his amazement, a few alpha particles rebounded almost directly backwards due to same positive charge repulsion force.


Click on the diagram to play!


This proved that:
  1. the atom had a dense but very small positive nucleus
  2. the electrons were far away from the nucleus
  3. the electrons were separated from the nucleus by a lot of empty space


Wednesday, February 1, 2012