Friday 31 July 2015

Trigonometry Assignment

Today I handed out a trigonometry assignment. This assignment is a non-compulsory assignment. This means that you can complete it and hand it to me if you want to. If you don't want to, that is ok. All that means is that you will only be assessed on the test. If you go poorly on the test, you don't have this assignment to prop up your mark a little. I would suggest you all do complete it, even if it is just for revision for the test.

The assignment is due on Wednesday the 5th of August. This is also the date we have our test.
We will have all lesson on Monday the 3rd of August to complete this assignment as well.

If you were absent, the assignment can be found under the "Assignments" tab.

As always, if you have any questions don't hesitate to comment on here, or email or chat to me in person.

Wednesday 29 July 2015

Trigonometry Test

So today's lesson was spent finishing off the worksheet on bearings and trigonometry. If you don't already have this sheet, it can be found in the "Worksheets" tab.

The most important thing to come out of today's lesson was our test coming up. This will be on the Wednesday the 5th August. Leading up to the test we have a lesson on Friday the 31st of July and Monday the 3rd of August. These lessons will be dedicated to revision. You will be given a revision assignment to work through. If you would like this to be marked and put towards your final mark for this unit, hand it in by Wednesday the 5th of August (the same day as the test).

Now for the test, you will be able to bring an A5 information sheet. This is a single sided A5 piece of paper that you can write whatever you would like onto. On the test you will have the SOH CAH TOA so you will not need this on your information sheet, however any other information you think will be helpful can be put onto this sheet.

As always, if you have any questions feel free to comment on this post, or email or chat to me in person.

Tuesday 28 July 2015

Bearings and Trigonometry

We are now looking at applying our knowledge of trigonometry as well as our knowledge of bearings to solve some more difficult navigation style problems. We will be looking to find either a distance traveled, or a bearing on which someone traveled or needs to travel.
The best way to go into these is to go straight into some worked examples. If you want to zoom in on these examples, simply click the image.

Example 1: Joe travels 7km on a bearing of 270 degrees true, then travels 4km North (bearing of 000 degrees true). If Joe walks in a straight line back to his starting point, find the true bearing he will be walking at.



Example 2: Julie travels on a bearing of S68W for 92km. How far south is she from her starting point?



I have included a worksheet on this topic under the "Worksheets" tab. We spent a short time on this in class on Monday 27th July, and we will spend all lesson on this on Wednesday 29th July.

If you have any questions regarding this topic, feel free to contact me by commenting on this post, or email me or see me.

Wednesday 22 July 2015

Bearings

Today we looked at bearings. Bearings are used in navigation to tell us what direction we are travelling or what direction we need to travel. Because we are dealing with directions and navigation it is important that you are familiar with the compass directions and the layout.



There are two main types of bearings used in navigation. They are
                    1. True bearings: This is basically how many degrees from north we have rotated in a clockwise direction. They must always be written as 3 digit numbers, so if we only rotate say 56 degrees, we need to write our true bearing as 056T (the T stand for "true").
                    2. Compass bearings: These tell us how far we have rotated from north or south in either a westerly or easterly direction. For example, if we have a compass bearing of N27E we have rotated from north 27 degrees in an easterly direction. Again, if we have S37W, we have started at south and rotated 37 degrees towards west.

I have made a PowerPoint presentation about this topic. It has some explanations based on this topic, as well as a few worked examples. This presentation can be found by clicking here

The most important skill to take from this is being able to convert between the two types of bearings (i.e. from a true bearing to a compass bearing, or visa versa). I have given a short explanation of this in the presentation as well as an example. If you are still having troubles, I have included a link to a good YouTube video in the presentation. If you are struggling to view that, the link is:

If you are still struggling, feel free to comment on this post. As far as work for this goes, I have uploaded a worksheet into the worksheets tab. Have a look at that and work through those questions. It is only short so it shouldn't take too long to finish off.
Next lesson we will be looking to use these new skills as well as our skills in trigonometry to work through some scenarios on navigating. 

Tuesday 21 July 2015

Welcome Back

Welcome back to Term 3.I hope you all had a great break and are feeling fresh and ready to go on with term 3.
Our first lesson back was simply a revision lesson. If you were unable to attend, look back at the posts on trigonometry and remind yourself of some of the ideas and techniques we have been using so far this unit. If you have not completed all of the worksheets (located in the worksheets tab, there are 3 for trigonometry) be sure to look at these and finish off the work on these.
As always, if you have any questions feel free to contact me either by email or commenting on these posts.

Friday 3 July 2015

Holidays!!

I really hope you all have a great time off and come back feeling fresh and ready to go for your final terms of high school ever!
I have enjoyed working with you all and getting to know all of you, and I look forward to the rest of the year.
Safe holidays and see you all in 2 weeks!

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Trigonometry in the "Real World"

Today we looked at examples of "real world" applications of trigonometry. This involves looking at worded questions and solving these using the skills we have gained throughout this unit so far.

The first step to solving these problems is drawing a diagram. You want to include as much information as possible on these diagrams. This will involve interpreting the information given in the questions and putting this on paper.

The next step is converting the units so they are all the same. For example, if we are given one side length in meters and another side length in centimeters, we have to convert one of these so they are the same (i.e. convert the meters to centimeters, OR convert the centimeters to meters). If you are unsure as to how to convert units, I suggest you do some research on this as it would have been covered in previous years in your maths studies.

Once we have a diagram and have our units all the same, we can then solve the question. To solve these, we use the same 5 steps we use to solve basic trigonometry problems. These are:
  1. Label the sides (i.e. label the hypotenuse, the adjacent and the opposite sides)
  2. Find which sides we are using for this problem (i.e. which sides are we given some information about)
  3. Find which ratio requires us to use these sides (i.e. if we are using the opposite and the hypotenuse, then we will have to use the Sin ratio)
  4. Write out the equation required to solve the problem
  5. Substitute in our values and solve our equation. 
There is a new worksheet on this under the worksheets tab. As always if you have any questions on this topic, feel free to see me or to post a comment on here.