collaborative labs

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PHY 202

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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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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First idea would be to see if you can achieve the same average velocity with two different mass objects rolling down an incline by adjusting the steepness of the inclines.

Second idea would be to see if you can achieve the same acceleration with two different mass objects rolling down an incline by adjusting the steepness of the inclines.

Third idea would be if increase the height of the stack of dominoes and apply the same force, would the top domino travel further or not as far.

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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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Get two different balls of different mass and set up two inclines. Time a few with each to get an idea of the velocities. Then begin to adjust the inclines to see if you can obtain the same average velocities.

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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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Get two different balls of different mass and set up two inclines. Time a few with each to get an idea of the rates of change in velocity. Then begin to adjust the inclines to see if you can obtain the same acceleration.

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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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Begin with a small stack of dominoes and apply a force and measure the distance the dominoes traveled. Then go higher and higher. The difficulty would be in making sure the force is equal in all attempts. This may be possible at home by setting up a pendulum and pulling it the same distance each time.

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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?

10 minutes

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Good ideas.

We will be following up on these soon.

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