Scioly.org

How will they mount the provided mirrors at the state competiton? Will they provide some sort of stand, or should we bring our own mirror stands?
And if they do provide stands, what kind will they use?

Does anyone have any good resources for the operating principles of optical equipment and learning pretty much anything for the Physical Optics part of the test?

Not Ur Average Bear wrote:How will they mount the provided mirrors at the state competiton? Will they provide some sort of stand, or should we bring our own mirror stands?
And if they do provide stands, what kind will they use?

It really depends on your proctor. Some will be nice and do what they're supposed to do and not do anything funky or weird; others will do random things with the stands. At one of our competitions, for example, the mirrors were mounted, slightly slanted on a magnet of sorts. Needless to say, it failed. Epically.
They will provide the stands, however. You don't bring the stands.

astroblue wrote:Does anyone have any good resources for the operating principles of optical equipment and learning pretty much anything for the Physical Optics part of the test?

Well...a physics textbook is always a good place to start. Other than that, we started googling everything on the rules sheet, got that down, and then googled everything else that we found but didn't know. I suppose http://www.physicsclassroom.com would be a good website to start with. But really, I relied on my textbooks and google more than anythign else. If you really want some more links, just ask. I'll do my best to find some.

I've been using a college level physics textbook for a lot of my studying, but it doesn't really cover topics like the Visible Spectrum and Bright Line and Absorption Spectra

astroblue wrote:I've been using a college level physics textbook for a lot of my studying, but it doesn't really cover topics like the Visible Spectrum and Bright Line and Absorption Spectra

In studying for this event, Google can be your best friend.
I got maybe 20% of my stuff out of a textbook, and the rest came from the Internet.

No kidding, Google is more than your best friend in SO--it's your lifeline. Anything you don't know--to Google! And in this event in particular--Optics is diverse and it is incredibly hard to find all your information in one, two, even three or four textbooks.

astroblue wrote:Does anyone have any good resources for the operating principles of optical equipment and learning pretty much anything for the Physical Optics part of the test?

In addition to foveverphysics' link, I found http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html very helpful. You might need to dig a little to find whatever topic you're looking for, though.

foreverphysics wrote:Google is more than your best friend in SO--it's your lifeline.

I also rely on Google a lot, but I cannot call it my lifeline... there are a lot of topics in which the Internet simply cannot provide for. There are some things called "field guides", but I doubt anyone will need one for this event. There's another resource called "college professors" that are easy to chat with where I live. I dunno if your city/town has a campus inside it, though.

Constellations wrote:

foreverphysics wrote:Google is more than your best friend in SO--it's your lifeline.

I also rely on Google a lot, but I cannot call it my lifeline... there are a lot of topics in which the Internet simply cannot provide for. There are some things called "field guides", but I doubt anyone will need one for this event. There's another resource called "college professors" that are easy to chat with where I live. I dunno if your city/town has a campus inside it, though.

Oh yes, we have a campus inside it. I live in a university town--our adult "coach" in this event is a university professor. Actually, that's the case for many of our study and lab events, and I think even a couple of our building events.
The issue comes up when you can't talk to the university professors.

I am making my optics binder for my partner as a surprise, and I'm really confused on what operating principles are. I checked those links, and I don't really know how to navigate the websites, and I don't have a textbook nearby. I need a little help. I just need a definition of the term, I can google the operating principles of certain objects with that definition in mind.