Purpose: The objective of this lab was to investigate the ways in which distance, time, and average speed are interrelated by maximizing the speed of falling dominoes. To become familiar with elementary graphing techniques.
Materials: Approximately 50 dominos, stopwatch, meterstick.
Procedure (8 Steps):
Step 1: Setup 50 dominoes in a straight row, with equal spacing between them. The dominoes must be spaced at least the thickness of one domino apart. Your goal is to maximize the speed at which a row of dominoes falls down. Set the dominoes in a way you think will give the greatest speed. Step 2: Measure the total length of your row of dominoes. Step 3: Compute the average spacing distance between dominoes by measuring the length from the middle of the first domino to the middle of the last one, and divide this by the number of domino spacings. Step 4: Measure the length of domino. Step 5: Measure the time it takes for your row of dominoes to fall down. Step 6: Compute the average toppling speed for your row of dominoes. Step 7: Repeat Steps 5 and 6 for at least three more spacings. Include a spacing that is about as small as you can make it and still produce top- pling and a spacing that is about as large as you can make it and still produce toppling. Record your data (including data for the first trial) in Data Table A. Step 8: Using a separate piece of graph paper, make a graph of your data by sketching a smooth curve through your data points. Identify the point on the curve where the speed is maximum or minimum (this need not be exactly at one of your measured points).
Data:
DATA TABLE
DATA GRAPH
TRIAL 1 TRIAL 2
TRIAL 3 TRIAL 4
TRIAL 5:TRIAL 6:
Conclusion & Analysis:In this lab, my observations show that as the distance increases, the time usually decreases. There is no actual pattern that is being shown but the estimated trend is the time decreases as the distance increases.