Forces and Motion- Marble Motion

  Have you ever wondered if gravity, compression, pressure and more can be used in different ways? Well, yes they can, for example the same thing we did with partners in my science class. Me and my partner Maryam were assigned to do a little lab to be able to answer some questions about forces and motion. The materials needed were these:
Straw/Different types of Marbles, Measuring stick and a tray.
Our procedure was:
1. Pick 4 marbles you want to work with
2. Pick a table to work on and label it with start and finish line
3. Get a straw for each partner
4. Place the first marble on the srating line and blow
5. Decide how to blow: Hard/Normal
6. Record how the marble traveled
7. Repeat from step 4-6 for every marble
As we started working, we did every step needed and now our teacher provided us with question we had to be able to answer once we finished:
Does the mass of a marble affect how it moves?
When given a force, (in this case blowing from the straw) what happenes to its motion?
Does size affect motion?
Before we could even think about answering those questions, we had to draw a graph and show how the marbles traveled, and not to forget the table with our recordings in it.
This was our graph:

We pretty much recorded everything we needed. Everyone had a different graph, and I think that we included everything and the most important things were mentioned.Once we finished creating this graph, came our drawings showing how much force was applied to every marble and how it traveled.

This picture may not be as clear, but it shows the 4 different path the marbles went. Next to the graphs, you may notice some green arrows showing how much force was applied. The marble and steel ball were pretty easy to blow at and make move, but while my partner and I were testing the Golf ball, extra force was applied because it was harder to make move. On the other hand, the Styrofoam ball was acctually pretty easy to make move except for the fact that it would always fall of the table so we would have to always retry unitl we could get an actual answer. That was all we needed to do to be able to proceed to our conclusion.

This is where we had to answer questions, so does the mass of a marble affect how it moves?
My partner and I didn't really focus on the mass that much, so I am not 100% which marble was the heaviest and which was the lightest, but I am guessing that the golf ball was the heavies one, and if I am correct, then yes the mass may affect the way a marble moves or how it is moved. While we were blowing into the golf ball, since it is the one that appears to weight the most, we had to use extra much of an amount of force. If we used the same amount of force to move the golf ball as we did with the marble, we wouldn't have succeeded.  Answering this question, brings me to an other question, does the size of the marble affect the way it is being hit by the motion? Well, in my opinion it does because in a way, this refers to mass even thought sometimes bigger balls weigh less than some smaller ones. Back to the characteristics of marbles, here comes an other question to my mind, does the material of the marble affect the way it goes in motion? I don't think this is a major affect, because the force (blow) doesn't really feel the material of the marble.

When given a force, (in this case blowing from the straw) what happenes to its motion?
 While applied a force to the marble, it starts setting it self into motion. How do we know the marble is moving and our eyes are not fooling us? This is why a reference point exists. A reference point is a point to which we refer to see if the object is moving. We can say that the object is moving if it is changing the distance in any way from its reference point.While doing this little project, the way we blew, so applied the force, was very important and affected the way the marbles went. We started out with blowing at the Styrofoam ball, our first trial, we blew from the bottom of the ball which didn't help at all because the forces weren't getting to the ball. On the other balls, we tried to hit with the force in the middle of ball so it would go straight but i guess how much force was applied was also something that affected the results. So after all, when given a force, the object will be get into some type of motion and react to what ever just happened in different ways.

Further Inquiry:
To end up this glob post, I must say that my partner and I did make some mistakes such as: blow from under the ball which affected our results at first. Also, if we would do this type of project next time, I think we should have focused a bit more on the mass of the marbles because we didn't really find that as interesting and maybe also measure how far the marbles traveled. But rather than that, I think we did a good job and can honestly say I understand this!

From feet to fathom Lab report

Hey there, during the last three days, my class has been working on a project all about forces and motion. Do you know what those two words mean? Well, if not then you are missing off on a big part, if you are more interested in learning about forces and motion you might consider looking through my last post just to get a basic idea of what forces and motion is about and then you can look it up. Anyways, back to my point of this post, at the begging of the first class we worked on this project, we had to read 2 pages talking about English measurements and why they were invented. Some of thee measurements were:
Pace-the measurement of your outstretched legs which is about 1 meter
Fathom-  the measurement of your arms wide outstretched which is about 180cm
Span- the measurement from your thumb to the end of your pinkie, usually about 20cm
 English Yard- the measurement from your nose to the tip of your index, about 90cm
Fingernail- the measurement from one side of your fingernail to the other side, about 1cm
Palm- your palm, usually about 8cm
Egyptian cubit- measurement from your elbow to the middle finger, usually about 40cm
Every time we start a new project, we have a guiding question and for this unit it was:
What is the importance of having an International measuring system? How accurate are old measurements using body parts?
My hypothesis when we first started was:
I think having an International system of measuring, so practically one that everyone uses is the best thing because if you use with different measurements, it might be hard to compare or explain to other people using a different measurement.Sharing the same measurement is just as important as having a communicative language that everyone understands, because without understanding everything every person has to say, we are just proving to ourselves that we aren't successful and that we can't share ideas because others won't understand. But on the other hand, just the same way Americans and English people use feet, and Europeans usually use centimeters and meter etc. people have figured out how to compare those measurements, so different places can have different measurements but we have to be able to compare them to our measurements so we gain knowledge. To answer the second question, the old measurements might be accurate but since it includes body parts, different people are different sizes and lengths which might cause a difference in the outcome. Also, for example the pace, if a person is able to do a split, then their pace would be very long and totally different from the one of others.
Materials:

·         Partner

·         Objects in the classroom (whiteboard, desk, hallway, SPACE book, Peep, Crayon box)

·         List of ways to measure: 

Pace:  

Egyptian cubit

Fathom

Palm

Hand including thumb

Span 

English yard

Foot

Fingernail

·         Meter stick or measuring tape

·         Calculator

Procedure:

1.       Make a data table in your notebook with 7 columns and 7 rows.  

2.       Choose one of the six objects or distances you will measure.

3.       Determine what form of measurement you will make with the first object. (For example:  Length of the 6^th grade hallway with paces, book with palm or hand, fingernail for crayon box, etc…)

4.       Measure it with the determined form of measurement 3 times, and then find the average. 

5.       Measure it with the meter stick/or measuring tape and find the actual measurement.  (IMPORTANT!!!!!  BE SURE THAT THE UNITS OF MEASUREMENT STAY THE SAME, either inches or centimeters or yards or feet or meters and the average needs to be in the same units)

6.       Repeat the same for each of the five objects that are left and measure it with a different type of measurement, 3 times, find the average and again the actual measurement.

7.       Compare class data results.  Find the average of these results. 

Record and Analyze:
Practically, me and my partner Irina, did everything that is written on the top, and we created the graph. :

Just by looking at the graph, I can compare some of our answers and the actual measurements of the objects. The closest average we got was the one for crayon box which we got exact and the space book followed by the desk were also very close. Observing when we were measuring the hallway, we got a very different answer than the actual and that is because my partner and I did not  take normal steps, but to have a bit more fun we did "splits".  Just looking at the measurements, and at the average, I can say that measuring with paces is not as accurate because different people might want to experiment and not have the same measurement as the others.

Conclusion:
After all, maybe even if you didn't do any lab or just looked at the graph, you could say that some of the English Measurements are somewhere close to precise, but the others are totally off.  I think the most precise measurement is the fingernail because it measures about 1cm and  at least one of your fingers on your hand measures up to 1cm. The pace, in my opinion is the worse measurement to use because different people can have different steps and some people might decide to do a split which would definitively ruin the whole outcome. So why exactly is it important to have an international measuring system? I think it is important to have an international system so that different communities from all over the world can communicate and compare measurements without having to go through a hard process which takes up your time. The easiest is to just get measuring sticks and rulers for every country, and make sure all sticks are the same so that everyone is talking about the same thing. Back to the guiding question,
What is the importance of having an International measuring system? How accurate are old measurements using body parts?
Old measuring body parts aren't always that accurate and can be different depending on different people. My hypothesis was correct because it explains how International systems are easier and all about comparing which is pretty much what I was just talking about. The easiest object to measure was probably the crayon box we measured it correctly and it was the same all the time so it was easy to find an average. My favorite thing to measure thought was the board because my partner and I used this method to measure called the yard which practically from your nose to your index, and we started at the end of the border, and continuously touched our fingers with the other persons nose which made us laugh so I call it the most fun one.
In conclusion, I can say that how the measuring systems work right now they are the easiest to understand and all over the world they are being able to communicate  with different outcomes.

Further Inquiry :
For this specific lab, I don't have any further questions because I was already familiar with everything and this was a good way to refresh my mind. I have also learned all different types of English measurements and how much they measure. If I was ever to do this lab again, I would make sure that for the pace, we would do the same steps as other people so our answer wouldn't be so much off. Actually, now that I think about it, I do have one question:
If there is a now-a-days International Measuring System, and everyone uses all over the world, why doesn't America use it at well? Why don't they use centimes but feet?  That is the only thing I can not understand. But after all, every thing else was clear and fun to do :D