Tennis Ball Lab Report

1) Procedures

1.   get all materials needed (meter stick, ramp, desk, tennis ball, tape, stopwatch)
2. set up a ramp that can have the ball go off the table
3. measure the distance from the top of the ramp to the end of the table
4. measure the edge of the ramp to the end of the table
5. measure the distacne from the table to the ground
6. start predicting the distance of where the ball will hit.
7. use equations to get your predictions
8. after you get an answer, test to see if your calculations are right.
9. place your meter stick on where you predicted where it will land (you can lay tape under it to mark it also)
10. roll the ball off the lamp
11. see if it will hit where you predicted (ours landed where we predicted)
12. now....be amazed by awesome physics :)

2 and 3)

<--this is the set up

the ball in process of falling.

4) I learned that in order to predict the landing of something, you must first find out all the measurements. I then learned how to plug these measurements into different formulas/equations. The final number would be my prediction of where the tennis ball will fall after falling off the ramp. I learned to see if your prediction is right, you test your calculations. You experiment! Mark off your prediction and see if it will land there. We really didn't have any errors because our calculations were correct, therfore we predicted the landing spot correctly. If we could have miscalculated, then the prediction spot would have been way off. You can use these type of calculations in War, for when you want to drop a bomb in a particular spot. You can find out all of the measurements of spots surrounding the place you want to bomb, and time the fall. Then you can have a pretty accurate prediction of where you will land this bomb. If all of your calculations are correct, then the bomb will hit right on the spot, and our soldiers will have gotten further into winning the war.

Rat Race Lab Report (BUG)

1) Procedures:
   1. First cut out some checkered background paper.
   2. Then glue it into a cardboard box.
   3. Put the mechanical cockroach in the box, and turn it on.
   4. Start videoing the cockroach for about half a minute.
   5. when your done, upload the video onto your computer. (save it somewhere)
   6. Then go to the Tracker program that has been installed on your computer.
   7. Start figuring out the horizontal and vertical movements by using the frame by frame button. (each movement of the cockroach is when it goes from one square to the next square)
   8. When you have about 15 different frames, add all the horizontal numbers together to get a distance.
   9. Next use the ABS formula to get the displacement of the horizontal movements.
  10. Repeat steps8 and 8 to get the vertical distance and displacement.
  11. Record all of the data
  12. Place all of this data into a google document spreadsheet.
  13. Organize it so that it is understandable.
2) Data Table
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvlV7BLF_xR5dGpxYjh4YzBWUE0yeTZqX3IwNHYyUmc&hl=en_US
3) SKIP FOR NOW
4) Conclusions
     I learned that to get the displacement of the cockroach, you must first figure out the distance that he traveled. In order to get the displacement, your distance of the cockroach must be correct. To get the horizontal distance, you must add all the horizontal movements together. You also have to do the same for the vertical movements. I learned how to tie all of this data into different formulas to get the correct information. I learned how to use the absolute value formula in order to get my displacement of the cockroach. The first time my group and I were recording the data, we accidently wrote down the wrong number for our distance, which means our displacement would be wrong as well. With this being wrong, it would have messed the whole project up. We had to be careful when recording the data and double check our work. Using this cockroach experiment can be applied to determining the average range of a typical cockroach. You can also use this information to help control the pest invasion of cockroaches.