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Phy 121
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.
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I know these are supposed to be collaborative labs. However, as distance learning part time student, currently a little behind in class due to full time job work loads,I'm concerned that I'm not a good lab partner at this time. I am 51 years old, with family(married 33 years) and currently employeed as a Research and Development Engineer for Pactiv Corporation(Hefty product maker). My ability to commit time to Physics is relative to how my projects at work are going. I have also managed projects with cross functional teams of management, production, maintenance and engineeting. So, I understand that working in a team environment is critical to project and idea success.
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You have completed the first series of collaborative labs.
In that series you developed some important skills with teamwork, collaboration and communication. By now you have also developed additional lab techniques and insights, as well as an expanded understanding of physics and the standard formulations of motion, energy, momentum, forces and other topics.
You now have a good idea of the function of each member of the team, the designer, the experimenter, the analyzer and the interpreter.
You are also familiar with the items in your lab materials package.
The second series of activities will be spread out over the remainder of the semester. The investigations in this series will be more substantial and extensive than those of the first series, though we will limit the scope to keep the workload reasonable.
Please give a brief statement of three proposals for the second series of investigations.
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1. Determine friction on ramp.
2. Determine ‘ds for ball from 2 step system. Off ramp from desk to floor.
3. Determine after effect, direction and velocity, from collision of two objects.
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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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The test here would be to get observations up and down ramp. Find delta accel and then Ffr. Will need ball, ramp, timer. The test would be to match the delta accel calcs to total system calcs. The question becomes does the short cut of accel difference match the total system difference?
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Good idea.
The ball on ramp experiment was particularly challenging. Since the coefficient of rolling friction for metal on metal is so low (one reason rails are more energy-efficient than rubber on pavement) the different between the 'up' and 'down' motions is small and difficult to measure.
The coefficient of friction turns out to be equal to the slope for which an object put into motion down the incline will remain in uniform motion, with no change in velocity.
It might be interesting to determine the coefficient of rolloing friction for an object (e.g., a toy car) by both methods and compare results.
It might also be interesting to determine the necessary slope for a ball on an incline.
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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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To find the distance horizntal from when leave desk to floor, we set up ramp on desk and observe distance of ball from desk edge to floor. Then calculate distance and see if calc matches observation distance.
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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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To test we take two balls of different mass. We also take two ramps, different angles, opposing each other. Said another way the ramps are set up so that the balls released from rest will accelerate down the ramp and collide with each other. We will calculate mass and velocity of balls and see if our after collision observations match our calculations.
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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?
About 30minutes.
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Your first idea might be the most promising. The third is also good but has been proposed by another student, and is the best selection for that student. The second is much like the experiment 'Ball and Ramp Projectile Behavior'; it could be adapted to measure the horizontal range for a ramp of given slope at different heights, to see if the result for velocity is consistent for the various heights.
I'll also look at suggestions related to the first set of labs.
I had some interesting groups set up for the first set of collaborative labs, but some students are working at different paces, and some have dropped.
The last drop date is either here or past. We'll address collaborative labs with groups of students who are committed to the course. We'll probably do only one collaborative lab, and I'll be asking for additional suggestions on the labs. There are already a number of good suggestion for the first collaborative lab, but now that everyone has done additional labs I want to give everyone a chance to express their ideas.
We have some excellent students in these courses and I think you'll enjoy working with your group.
The collaborative labs aren't designed to be too labor-intensive on any of the participants, and the timeline will give all groups about a month to complete the work. Hopefully your groups will be able to work within your schedule, which I understand might be somewhat unpredictable (one of my sons-in-law is a vice president of a large worldwide gaming company and I see what he, and the engineers on his team, have to contend with).
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