Your 'ball down ramp' report has been received. Scroll down through the document to see any comments I might have inserted, and my final comment at the end.
** Your general comment **
** Will a steeper ramp give greater or lesser time? **
I think the time required to roll the length of the ramp will be least for the steepest ramp.
** As slopes increases will time intervals increase, decrease or show no pattern? **
If we write down the slopes from least to greatest, next to the time intervals observed for those slopes, I would expect the time intervals to be decreasing
** Your report of 5 trials each way for 1 domino **
with 27.5 cm travel from two directions the interval of a ball rolling down a ramp was timed. Error was introduced in at least two ways: 1. Small magnetic chips were stuck to the ball and could have slowed it intermittently. They were discovered on the first trial of left-to-right. It is unknown how long they were present. 2. When removing the domino from the ramp to allow the ball to roll, it was difficult to remove it and not cause the ball to temporarily roll up the ramp before returning, which causes a longer interval. I am not sure if this happened during the trials, but did happen during practice.
2.20
2.30
2.22
2.30
2.15
1.78
2.00
1.93
1.92
1.95
At this point it looks like either my technique differs from left to right or my table is not level!
It was tedious to reset the ramp each time. In a real life setting I would fix the apparatus so nothing moved.
** Your report of 5 trials each way for 2 dominoes **
The data appears to be closer from left to right than the previous trial. Either I refined my technique or the increased slope reduces the type of error that I was experiencing in the first trial.
1.27
1.30
1.31
1.31
1.28
1.23
1.22
1.22
1.23
1.22
** Your report of 5 trials each way for 3 dominoes **
Interesting note - my first trial of left to right and first trial of right to left were almost equal, but were also above the average time of the other trials.
1.011
0.961
0.973
0.922
0.965
1.012
0.953
0.980
0.973
0.984
** Do your results support or fail to support your hypothesis about increasing or decreasing times? **
My hypothesis stands. The interval decreases as the slope increases.
** How do you think ave velocity is related to slope? **
The average velocity of the ball has to be positively correlated to the slope of the ramp because the interval is negatively correlated. The ball is traveling the same distance in less time as the slope increases.
** Speculate on why ave velocity changes with slope. **
I speculate that the interaction between gravity, the ramp, and the ball causes the velocity to change with slope. I think that a more steeply sloped ramp exerts less force on the ball in an upward z direction and allows it to fall faster.
** How could you test your speculations? **
First I would sanitize my lab environment for error by fixing the apparatus to a permanent stationary position and using electronic gates to detect the position and time at the top and bottom of the ramp.
Then, I would gather data for the three heights.
Then, I would dump the data into Minitab (or excel) and perform analysis to correlate the slope to the time. I could break the data down further into x and y components and relate the y-component to the force of gravity. I should come up with a constant close to the historically accepted value.
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60 minutes
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&#Very good work. Let me know if you have questions. &#