If you missed today: Friday December 13th, 2013 The Pendulum Lab
1. Students guessed the 8th day of Physmas. Hint: Musical notes
2. We watched the following minute video that shows the connection between circular motion and simple harmonic motion: Click run in the upper right of this website to watch the video
3. SOHCAHTOA, Law of Cosines, and the Law of Sines are just the tip of the iceberg for the Trigonometric Functions. Actually anything in the universe that is periodic can be written as a trig. function.
4. The Pendulum Lab.
Note: In 2013 I went around the classroom and orally viewed the Pendulum Lab. I expected just a purpose, NO procedure, the data table, the graph, and the calculation of g from the graph and the % error. Ms. Wernicke requested a conclusion and summary also.
Note in these smart board notes the formula for a pendulum swinging at less than a 15 degree angle from the vertical hang is T = 2*PI*Square Root (L/g) so if you square both sides you get T^2 = (4 * PI^2 / g) * L which looks like y = m x + b where b is zero. So students made a T^2 column in their data table along with recording the period (T) after timing 10 swings of the pendulum back and forth and dividing that time by ten and recording the length of the pendulum to the center of mass of the object swinging.
So if you graph T^2 on the y-axis and L on the x-axis and set the slope of your line = 4 * PI^2 /g and solve for g, then all you have to do is calculate your % error where the actual is g = 9.8 m/s^2.
Note these smart board notes to understand the above information better.
Concerned about you Nikki, get better soon, we miss you everyday that you are gone. And David, you'll be able to get all four labs made up in one class period (believe it or not) as each of the four labs (airplane, pendulum, Hooks's Law 1 & 2) only take about 10 minutes apiece to collect all the data. You will still need about 20 minutes apiece to finish them up after collecting the data though. We will keep a setup in the resource area for anyone who misses all four labs. If you just missed Fridays lab, we'll keep a setup right in the classroom that you can catch up as soon as you get back after finishing the quickie lab of the day.
Note in these smart board notes the formula for a pendulum swinging at less than a 15 degree angle from the vertical hang is T = 2*PI*Square Root (L/g) so if you square both sides you get T^2 = (4 * PI^2 / g) * L which looks like y = m x + b where b is zero. So students made a T^2 column in their data table along with recording the period (T) after timing 10 swings of the pendulum back and forth and dividing that time by ten and recording the length of the pendulum to the center of mass of the object swinging.
So if you graph T^2 on the y-axis and L on the x-axis and set the slope of your line = 4 * PI^2 /g and solve for g, then all you have to do is calculate your % error where the actual is g = 9.8 m/s^2.
Note these smart board notes to understand the above information better.
Concerned about you Nikki, get better soon, we miss you everyday that you are gone. And David, you'll be able to get all four labs made up in one class period (believe it or not) as each of the four labs (airplane, pendulum, Hooks's Law 1 & 2) only take about 10 minutes apiece to collect all the data. You will still need about 20 minutes apiece to finish them up after collecting the data though. We will keep a setup in the resource area for anyone who misses all four labs. If you just missed Fridays lab, we'll keep a setup right in the classroom that you can catch up as soon as you get back after finishing the quickie lab of the day.