Week 4 Blog

In the lab, my group and I constructed an experiment on the difference in the pace of swings when it came to the length of the rope/chain. The experiment consisted of three different sizes of string- 6 inches, 10 inches, and 17 inches. Each of these strings had the same amount of weight on the end. What we did was choose the amount of swings they did back and forth and time how long that took them to do. The amount of swings we decided to do was 4 and 6 swings.  What we came to find out was that the shorter the rope, the faster the rider is going to swing. We then created a graph and graphed all the data shown, which showed the difference between the ropes and the different amount of swing trials we did. 

    I know we discussed this in the lab on Tuesday, but Thursday’s lecture helped me understand the relationship between weight and gravity. You would think that an object that is of heavier weight would swing and go down a slide faster, but that is not the case. We did a Google Form in a lecture where we picked what made most sense about this relationship in the swing aspect. I picked the option that talked about gravity pulling more on objects of heavier weight, but objects of heavier weight being harder to accelerate. That is why there is not really a noticeable difference when it comes to weight and the pace of swings. The lecture and discussion with our professor and the discussion we had in our breakout rooms helped me understand this concept better than I previously did from the lab. 

The textbook reading this week was about pendulums and energy. I learned a lot about potential and kinetic energy.​​ Potential energy would be before the pendulum is released from the starting point, and when the pendulum releases from that point and goes down, that is the kinetic energy. This relationship switches back and forth from potential and kinetic energy as it goes down and up in its swing. I feel the most helpful thing that I read from the textbook was the pendulum lab that we also did during the lab. It helps you compare and contrast different lengths of pendulums and what happens when they are shorter versus longer. It is also nice that you can change the gravity and friction in the lab because it really tests a lot of different aspects of the swing concept we have been discussing during class in a much faster way than conducting an experiment. I would like to discuss the different aspects of the variables that could change the speed of the swing, not just the idea of length like the textbook is discussing. I do not have any questions about anything as of right now!