Optics B/C

[Adi1008]

Along with the question posted above, I was wondering if there were any online simulations that anyone has used in order to practice the laser shoot, or if anyone is interested in creating one?

I've found that it's much more useful to practice in real life with this stuff. Online simulations fail to capture the real life intricacies of using the LSS; they usually don't account for things like the thickness of the wood of the barriers or mirror coverings (which are extremely important; see MIT), and you need a certain amount of skill/strategy to move the mirrors around carefully, which a program can't replicate

If you're looking for a good way to practice, I'd highly recommend simply building your own LSS and just experimenting around with it

[CVMSAvalacheStudent]

Why is Optics a lab event and not a study event? Is it because of the laser shoot setup?

[CVMSAvalacheStudent]

Along with the question posted above, I was wondering if there were any online simulations that anyone has used in order to practice the laser shoot, or if anyone is interested in creating one?

Practicing online is cheap, but you can buy a kit online for more than $50a t Ward's Science.

[jkang]

Why is Optics a lab event and not a study event? Is it because of the laser shoot setup?

Yes, I think most events that are split engineering/lab/etc and test are considered "lab" events (see chem lab, compound machines, it's about time, etc)

[kenniky]

To be honest the difference is rather arbitrary; however I think this is how scioly.org categorizes:

Build Events: no test, builds are meant to be completed before the competition and tested at the competition
Study Events: only a test. Rarely includes hands-on portions, although definitely possible
Lab Events: everything else, basically. Either are a combination of study and build (as is the case of many physics events, see: IAT, Compound, Wind, Hovercraft, MagLev, etc), or involves some sort of hands-on portion that either is the entirety of the event (ExpDes, Game On, Picture This) or is a part of the event along with the test (Optics, chemistry events)

Either way, doesn't matter too much. As long as you know where everything is you should be alright.

On a different note, what have you guys found is the hardest thing to find stuff for? I still don't entirely understand what we're supposed to do with absorption spectra :b

[jkang]

On a different note, what have you guys found is the hardest thing to find stuff for? I still don't entirely understand what we're supposed to do with absorption spectra :b

As a test writer, I mostly base this off of astronomical phenomena (things like the Sun's absorption spectrum). I generally tend to include emission spectra in this category as well, because if you're willing to learn about absorption spectra, you might as well learn about emission spectra too

[smolblob]

Along with the question posted above, I was wondering if there were any online simulations that anyone has used in order to practice the laser shoot, or if anyone is interested in creating one?

Practicing online is cheap, but you can buy a kit online for more than $50a t Ward's Science.

There is an online website that someone made (I think as a personal project) but it's not especially good for practice-I think it was meant mostly for theory of the general location to put mirrors. The WardSci one is quite pricey- $150ish per kit and $59 per laser, last time I checked.

[smolblob]

Furthermore, the WardSci one comes with 5 mirrors, I'm pretty sure, so if you wanted to practice with the barrier mirror, you'd want to build one yourself, I guess. This could be done by just gluing a mirror (from like the local craft store) on the given barrier, which is what we did. It works pretty well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[kenniky]

you can just make your own, it's really simple lol

By far the hardest part is finding mirrors that are small enough, but even that is not that hard (you can find some on Amazon)

[chalker]

you can just make your own, it's really simple lol

By far the hardest part is finding mirrors that are small enough, but even that is not that hard (you can find some on Amazon)

In fact, we have a simple step-by-step guide to making one on the event page on soinc.org:
https://www.soinc.org/optics-b