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PHY 241
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 **
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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 activities are to be completed by teams of four. One team member will come up with the idea for the activity, one will collect the data, one will analyze the data,
and one will interpret the results. The stduent will fill each of these roles over time.
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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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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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Idea 1: Testing acceleration due to gravity. Materials: Rubber bouncy ball; marble or other small, dense sphere; tabletop; measuring tape, timer program. First, drop
the bouncy ball and the marble from the same elevation (tabletop) to the floor, seeing which one hits first. Repeat this for consistency. Once a correlation has been
found (i.e. they hit the ground at the same time), repeat the drop with just the marble, being sure to time its descent. Use knowledge of uniformly accelerated motion
to determine the object's acceleration based on initial velocity of 0, height of the table, and time requried to drop and hit the ground.
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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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Idea 2: Rolling a ball up a ramp. Materials: book, quarters (or something to place under the book to elevate one end), ruler, ball, timer. Incline the book on one end.
Lay the ruler on the books surface to determine the distance travelled along the book. Roll the ball up the book and allow it to roll back down, noting the time and
position when it reaches its peak, as well as when it returns to the bottom of the book. Repeat this process. Determine velocity, and whether the ball moves more
quickly up the book's surface or down it. Possibly repeat the same, also recording the time of a point between the original and peak positions. Does the ball speed up
or slow down going up the book? Coming down the book?
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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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Idea 3: Sliding an object using a rubber band. Materials: large domino, rubber band, ruler, book. Lay the domino on the book, with the largest side of the domino
against the book. Pull the domino back against the rubber band .5 cm and release, seeing how far the domino slides on the book. Repeat this a few times, pulling the
band back an additional .5 cm each time. See if there is a proportinality between the distance the band is stretched and the distance the domino slides.
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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?
45 min
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Good ideas.
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PHY 241
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 **
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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, relevant to the topics of the labs you have performed and/or the material
covered so far in the course. It should be possible to conduct your proposed investigations using the materials in the lab package, and/or common items you can expect
your team members to have.
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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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Idea 1: Collision of two balls. Materials: two marbles, ruler, timer, shelving standard. Place the standard on a level surface. Measure halfway down the standard, and
position one marble so that it rests with one extreme end just beyond the halfway point. Nudge the other marble the positioned marble so that they will collide and the
second marble will roll the rest of the way down the standard, timing the interval from the nudge to collision and from collision to loss of contact with the standard
at the other end. Figure the velocities for each interval, and determine whether the velocities were the same or not. If not, hypothesize as to why not.
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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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Idea 2: Angular acceleration. Materials: Timer, washer, strong thread or string. Tie the washer to one end of the string. Swing the washer in a horizontal circle,
counting the number of rotations over 30 seconds. Do this again, but try to do it more slowly. Figure the angular velocity for each trial, and estimate the minimum
angular velocity required to maintain the circular path.
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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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Idea 3: Pendulum collision. Materials: two identical beads; two identical pieces of string; timer; bracket with two bolts on one end, next to one another and parallel
to the ground, positioned so that the two pendulums will touchwhen resting at equilibrium. Create two pendulums of equal length using the string and beads, and attach
them to the bolts on the end of the bracket so that they hang downwards and touch at equilibrium.Pull back one pendulum and release it so that it strikes the other
pendulum. Record the time between release and the collision, and between each collision. Determine whether the pendulums are slowing down, and whether ther is a
pattern to their motion(do they slow down constantly, at an increasing rate, or at a decreasing rate?).
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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?
45 min
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Good. Thanks.
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