Problem: What effect does the mass of the ball have on its force when rolling down an inclined plane?
Hypothesis: I think that if the mass of the ball is greater, the greater amount of force it will have because of Newtons Second Law states that force is equal to the acceleration multiplied by the mass of an object.
Experiment:
Variables -
IV- mass of the ball
CV- same slope, same friction, same height of pulley
DV- time of rising pulley
Control- golf ball
Materials -
Pulley
6' of String
2 Cups
Marble
Golf Ball
Inclined Plane
Stopwatch
Ruler
Procedure-
1. Gather all materials
2. Punch two holes through both cups
3. Cut about six feet of string and pass it through one cups set of holes and knot the string.
4. Run the other side of the string through the pulley
5. Repeat the third step of knotting the open end of the string through the remaining cup
6. Attach pulley to the ceiling
7. Set up the inclined plane with one end 5 inches above table/surface and the other on the surface
8. Roll a ball down to make sure it lands in the pulley
9. Make adjustments as necessary
10. Begin the tests by rolling the marble down hte inclined plane
11. As soon as the ball lands in the cup of the pulley, begin the stopwatch
12. When the opposite cup raises enough that it hits the pulley, stop the timer
13. Repeat these steps 10-12 twice more with the marble
14. Repeat steps 10-12 three times with the golf ball
16. Record all data
External variables: scientific accuracy's worst nightmare. But for this experiment they will not destroy the accuracy because I will terminate them before I even start. For my ball to roll in a straight path, I have decided to build edges around the ramp that will allow the ball to only roll in one direction, which is straight. Another way I will abolish those pesky external variables is that I reset the experiment after each trial just in case shifting may occur while doing each mission. Lastly, I will do my experimentation in a nice, controlled environment to keep the externals variable away from the ever changing environments.With this as my plan I assure that I won't have to deal with the annoyance of external variables at all in this experiment.
Observation
Type Of Ball Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Average
Marble 1.74 1.84 1.5 4.08
Golf Ball 0.98 0.91 0.96 2.21
(recorded in seconds)
Conclusion
In the problem "
What effect does the mass of the ball have on its force when rolling down an inclined plane
?", my hypothesis was that that if the mass of the ball is greater, the greater amount of force it will have. I believed this because
Newtons Second Law which states that force is equal to the acceleration multiplied by the mass of an object. After completing my experimentation, I found that my hypothesis was supported by the data. I found that when the marble fell in to the pulley, it had an average speed of 4.08 seconds, while the golf ball as it went into the pulley it went at a amazing average speed of 2.21 seconds Based off the averages of the two types of balls, the golf ball was faster be an average of 1.87 seconds ! An explanation of the observations come simply with the weights of the spherical objects in questioning. As I went into further investigation of this problematic predicament, I weighed both of the balls. As a (not) shocking result, the golf ball weighed more by 42.93 grams. With that data and the equation for Newton's Second Law Of Motion (Force=Mass x Acceleration ), it is clear as crystal how the golf ball was faster than the puny marble.
Proficiency 2
Problem: What effect does friction have on the time of a ball rolling down different surfaces?
Hypothesis: I think the effect friction has on the time of a ball rolling down different surfaces will change due to the smoothness or roughness of the surfaces.
Experiment:
Variables -
IV- friction of the surfaces
CV- same slope, same ball, same person timing
DV- time of ball rolling
Control- wooden inclined plane
Materials -
1 foot long wooden inclined plane
1 foot long plastic inclined plane
1 Stopwatch
1 Marble
Procedure-
- Gather all materials
- Take 12 inch wooden inclined plane and place so that one of its sides is on the ground and the other side is 5 inches above the ground.
- Place marble on the top of the inclined plane
- Roll the marble down the inclined plane
- Starting the stopwatch as soon as you let go of the marble
- Wait for the ball to roll down the length of the wooden plane and then stop the stop watch
- Record the results
- Repeat steps 3 through 6 two more times with the wooden inclined plane
- Repeat steps 2 through 6 with the glass inclined plane three times
- Clean up station
- Create a table
- Write a conclusion
Observations
Type Of Ramp Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Average
Wood 0.3 0.28 0.49 .743
Plastic 0.25 0.24 0.1 .523
(recorded in seconds)
Conclusion
In the problem "What effect does friction have on the time of a ball rolling down different surfaces?", my hypothesis was that the time of a ball rolling down different surfaces will change due to the smoothness or roughness of the surfaces . I believed this because what friction actually is the force resisting the relative motion of a solid surface. After going through the experiment , I found that my hypothesis was supported by the observation I recorded. I found that when the marble was rolling down the wooden ramp, it had an average rate of .743 seconds, while when the marble was rolling down the plastic slope, it allowed the marble to have an average rate of .523 seconds, a miraculous difference of .211 seconds. I believe the observations come out this way because just from the sense of touch. If you were to run your hand across a slab of wood then a slab of plastic, more times than not, you would say that the plastic is a lot smoother to the touch. With that in mind, it is no reason that the wood lost because, the smoother the material, the less friction it has to offer.
Proficiency 3
Problem: What effect does the degree of slope have on the acceleration of a marble?
Hypothesis: I believe that the higher the degree of the slope, the more acceleration the marble will have.
Experiment:
Variables -
IV- angle of incline plane
CV- same marble, same slope, same timer
DV- amount of time for each experiment
Control- A 45 degree angle
Materials -
1 12 inch inclined plane
1 Stopwatch
1 Ruler
1 Marble
Procedure-
- Gather all materials
- Create an inclined plane so that it is at a 25 degree to the top of the ramp
- Place the marble on the top of the inclined plane
- Activate the stopwatch as the marble rolls down the inclined plane
- Deactivate the stopwatch as soon as the marble reaches the bottom of the ramp
- Record data
- Repeat steps 3 through 7 with the 25 degree slope twice more
- Change the ramp so that it is now at a 45 degree angle
- Repeat steps 3 through 7 three times with this arrangement
- Clean up experimental area
- Create table
- Write conclusion
As though many may think doing the experiment is hard enough, trying to keep away the gremlin-likeness of external variables is a task quite difficult by itself but is most worth it. One way I will keep away external variables is to check the inclined plane so that it is at the desired ramp degree. This will keep the data more scientific and more accurate. Also I will start the marble at the same spot by placing a marker at the beginning of the ramp so I know exactly where to put it each and every time. Lastly I will try to begin and end the stopwatch quite accurately to make sure that I won't mess up the data. Through these precautionary tasks the predicaments of external variables will be no more.
Observations
Degree Of Inclined Plane Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Average
25 angle 60.80 27.46 29.83 39.36
45 angle 19.78 45.45 60.22 41.82
(recorded in inches per second per second)
Conclusion
Observations
Degree Of Inclined Plane Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Average
25 angle 60.80 27.46 29.83 39.36
45 angle 19.78 45.45 60.22 41.82
(recorded in inches per second per second)
Conclusion
In the problem "What effect does the degree of slope have on the acceleration of a marble?", my hypothesis was that as the degree of slope increased,the marble would increase in acceleration and over all have a faster time rolling down the inclined plane. I believed this because when I was just a wee child my mom always made me use my bike brakes when rinding down a giant hill. I now know this wasn't so I could have any fun, but to keep me from getting injured from the top speeds I would have reached if otherwise. After going through the experiment , I found that my hypothesis was supported by the observation I recorded. I found that when the marble was rolling down the 25 degree slope, it had an average rate of acceleration of 39.36, while when the marble was rolling down the 45 degree slope, it allowed the marble to have an average rate of acceleration of 41.82 in/s/s. This is no surprise to people who are taking a physics class because the way you would find the mechanical advantage of a inclined plane is length divided by height. With this we can see that since the length of the ramp was the same for all testing, but the height changed, the 45 degree inclined plane would have had less mechanical advantage than the 25 degree inclined plane. And because of that the marble on the 45 degree slope went faster because the less mechanical advantage there is, the more energy transfer and the more acceleration.
Proficiency 4
I. Car turns on, knocks over dominoes
II. Dominoes hit ball 1 down inclined plane 1
III. Ball falls into cup on pulley 1
IV. Opposite side of pulley 1 raises, hits lever 1
V. Lever 1 releases marbles down inclined plane 2
VI. Marbles hit dominoes up inclined plane
VII. Dominoes hit ball through slight crack in table
VIII. Ball rolls down the crack of table
IX. Balls drops
X. Ball goes down screw
XI. Balls roll out screw, hitting handle of scissors
XII. Scissors cut tightly pulled string, held by two leaning objects.
XIII. Two objects fall into dominoes
XIV. Dominoes fall in separate paths hitting marbles
XV. Marbles race each other on separate inclines planes (different slants [steep and gentle])
XVI. Marbles each hit Oreo
XVII. Oreo rolls off table into milk
**Though this is our plan we aren't sure if we can put this plan in action due to time and space conditions**
Sadly the original design of this awesome Rube Goldberg has been diminished and had to be changed. Though the original idea was quite amazing it was a change that needed to be done because of space and time. It was really sad when we had to start over and only do the basics when we had such a elaborate plan. After test and test again we saw we could get each part to work separately we could not have them come together. We showed each step on the video format on Microsoft Onenote, but because of that I might not being able to show it on my page.
New Procedure
- Car, riding down an inclined plane, runs in to a dish hooked up to a pulley
- Because of a pulley being a pulley, the lighter side flings up
- Dish attached to the pulley, while flinging up hits lever a lever containing a lever on top c
- Marble rolls down lever, hits stream of dominoes
- Stream of dominoes continue to hit one another, it will hit a large steel ball
- Steel ball falls into a hole in a screw
- Steel ball goes through the screw
- Steel ball falls out of screw falling onto scissors
- Scissors, because of the weight of the ball falling on top, cut string
Inclined Plane
The inclined plane that we used is a toy race car ramp with a toy car on it. As it is perched on the top of the ramp, the car it has potential energy. Potential Energy is energy that is stored and has the potential to have it energy be used. When a member of my group or I would release the minute car the plane converts the potential energy of the car to kinetic energy or the energy that is shown during motion.
Wheel And Axle
The wheel and axle in our Rube Goldberg would be the toy car mentioned in the inclined plane paragraph. With the car, we place it on a inclined plane and as it rested there it had potential energy stored up for the moment we let go. As we let go of the car the potential energy turns into kinetic energy in the blink of a eye. With kinetic energy, it is the energy shown while in motion.
Screw
For the screw, we as a team decided to create one out of toilet paper tubes and duct tape. In our Rube Goldberg it was used to roll a steel ball down on to a pair of scissors. While waiting to be hit be dominoes the ball has a lot of potential energy. But as the ball is beginning to roll down the screw it begins to have more and more torque which means more and more energy.
Pulley
When it comes to the pulley in our contraption, it does a very, very important role. As a car rolls down a ramp, it will fall into a dish that is tied to a rope connecting to a pulley. As the weight distributes, the other side of the string holds another dish that will hit a ramp containing a marble on top of it. Pulleys are very important because it saved us a lot of time because instead of actually going through this totally too elaborate plan of dominoes and who knows what else, we can just use a pulley, string, and two bowls.
Wedge
In our Rube Goldberg contraption, we had a pair of scissors be the wedge in our group. This was actually at the end of our apparatus to complete our simple act of cutting string. The way we would have used this mechanical device without the help of our extremities is that we would have a metal ball roll through a screw and with the torque and energy produced through the screw would have enough force to cut string.
Proficiency 5
Water, the symbol of strength, fertilization, and life to humans and animals alike. As water comes in the form of precipitation vegetation grows rejuvenating the land so we can enjoy and survive. But what if we could use this powerful aqueous material then just quench our thirst and grow our crops? What if we could use it to save the earth from the pollutions from fossil fuels and the likeness of nuclear power and its waste? Thanks to Lester Allen Pelton, the inventor of hydropower, these problematic predicaments aren’t as difficult.
How the clean source of energy called hydropower is produced from the force or energy of moving waters, which harnessed by using either wheels or fans to create the captured energy. The energy from this water can be used for many useful purposes. Before the availability of commercial electric power, the energy from hydropower was used for irrigation, and operation of various machines, such as watermills, textile machines, sawmills, dock cranes, and domestic lifts. But, even before that the use of water wasn’t something out of the ordinary.
Though this energy seems quite new, hydropower has been used for hundreds of years. In India, water wheels and watermills were built; in Imperial Rome, water powered mills produced flour from grain, and were also used for sawing timber and stone; in China, watermills were widely used since the Han Dynasty. The power of a wave of water released from a tank was used for extraction of metal ores in a method known as hushing. The method was first used at the Dolaucothi gold mine in Wales from 75 AD onwards, but had been developed in Spain at such mines as Las Medulas. Hushing was also widely used in Britain in the Medieval and later periods to extract lead and tin ores. It later evolved into hydraulic mining when used during the California gold rush.
In our world today it is all about moving towards the future. From Pac-man to Playstation 3 we are starting to forget the old and replacing that figurative hole with more of the future. But though the old may not always be the best option, hydropower is one not to forget in the box of the forgotten past.
