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phy121
Your 'collaborative labs' report has been received. Scroll down through the document to see any comments I might have inserted, and my final comment at the end.
** Collaborative Labs_labelMessages.txt **
11/22/13 11:55 pm
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You will participate during the semester in two series of collaborative lab activities.
The first is designed to be relatively painless, and to begin to develop a degree of teamwork and collaboration.
These activities are designed for teams of four individuals, each with a specific function:
• The designer will come up with the idea for the activity and will specify for other team members how the activity is to be conducted.
• The experimenter will follow the designer's instructions to set up the experiment and collect data.
• The analyzer will analyze the data.
• The interpreter will describe what the results mean.
For each series of activities, you will participate in four different investigations, one as designer, another as experimenter, another as analyzer and another as interpreter.
As each investigation progresses, you will follow the work of your fellow team members.
Please summarize the above, as best you can, in your own words:
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The first series of activities will be spread out over the first half of the semester, the second series over the second half of the semester.
The first series will be based on systems you have seen in the Key Systems videos.
You will begin by describing at least three ideas for investigations related to the Key Systems videos. Valid ideas will ultimately be developed proposals, each of which will describe a question that could be investigated and tested using simple materials such as those seen in the videos. You will eventually develop three proposals, one of which will be chosen for an investigation. You will be the designer for that investigation.
At this point we're just beginning to explore ideas for the first series of investigations. Your instructor will work with you to further develop your ideas, and perhaps to explore other related possibilities.
Right now you don't have a wide variety of experimental techniques available to you, so this first series of investigations will be relatively simple.
List below three ideas for things you think might be fairly easy to test, based on the systems you have seen so far.
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We could test how changing weight and length of the pendulum change the frequency, amplitude, and cycle, and period.
We could determine velocity of a ball rolling down an incline based on various incline heights and various ball weights or various incline materials
We could test the tension placed on different rubber bands in a rubber band chain by taking measurements
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Discuss your first idea. How do you think it might be tested? What sort of items do you think might be required? How do you think your idea might be tested?
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We could use the pendulum as seen in the videos on key systems and experiment with different string lengths and different pendulum weights to see what affect these changes would have on the frequencies over a given time interval. We would need various lengths of strings as well as objects for the pendulum that have different weights. WE would then use different string lengths and different weights and time the pendulum for 1 minute to determine, frequency, amplitude, and period. We would note which changes occurred and make conclusions based on the effects the length and weight have on the pendulum system.
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Discuss your second idea. How do you think it might be tested? What sort of items do you think might be required? How do you think your idea might be tested?
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We would need to provide inclines of various materials such as a book, or a piece of plywood as well as use objects to prop up one end of the incline, perhaps CDs we could stack to various heights. We would use steel balls of varying weights or the race car vs. a glue stick etc (different shape and different mass objects to roll down the incline). We would use the timer program to time how long it takes the object to reach the end of the incline and by measuring the length of the incline we can determine average velocity. We can determine what effects different textures of the incline, different weights, and different object shapes have on velocity. We could also determine by marking a halfway point and doing further timing if the object is speeding up or slowing down as it goes down the incline.
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Discuss your third idea. How do you think it might be tested? What sort of items do you think might be required? How do you think your idea might be tested?
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We can construct a rubber band chain with paperclips and rubber bands and stretch the entire length of the chain by hand to various measured distances. When the rubber band chain is stretched to the desired length, place weighted objects on either end to hold it in place. Then measure the length of each individual rubber band in the chain to determine the lengths and compare them. The rubber bands with the longest lengths have the most tension. By collecting this data, you could then determine if the same rubber bands within the chain are always having more tension despite stretching the rubber band chain to various lengths.
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Good idea, but rubber bands aren't manufactured uniformly. They will vary in length and thickness. So just measuring lengths will not reveal their relative tensions.
A slight variant would be to make a chain alternating rubber bands and paper clips. The chain could easily be taken apart at various positions and a 'standard' rubber band (any rubber band we choose to be our standard) could be inserted. The lengths of that rubber band at different positions could reveal relative tensions.
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Your instructor is trying to gauge the typical time spent by students on these activities. Please answer the following question as accurately as you can, understanding that your answer will be used only for the stated purpose and has no bearing on your grades:
• Approximately how long did it take you to complete this activity?
30 minutes
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Very good ideas. Check my one note.
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