Doing Science!

So on our last STP meeting, we really got down to the nitty gritty of everything we needed for our little experiment. As simple as our experiment might be, we are performing science so no shortcuts are to be taken. So we had to go through all the details, and this is what we got

Hypothesis

 If the height of the top of the ramp increases, then the maximum velocity the cart will also increase.

Dependent Variable   

Maximum velocity of the cart in meters per second.

Independent Variable

Height of the top of the ramp in centimeters.

 

Sounds simple enough. But if we want to do this right, and be able to compare our data correctly with others, we have to account for a lot of things and make sure we have the same constants. And there's a lot of constants we really got to think about.

 

Constants

 The constants we had to think of: 

  • The material of the ramp. 
  • The length of the ramp
  • The exact release point of the cart.
  • The weight of the cart. 
  • The wheels of the cart
  • The force applied on the cart during release.
  • Angle of the surface in which the ramp is on.
  • The direction in which the cart is facing.
  • Our instruments of measurement.
  •  Even on what planet we are doing our experiment! 

There might even be more that we hadn't thought of, but every detail needs to be accounted for. Why though? I mentioned it on my definition of science. "Communication is the key to creating a strong understanding of everything" (Wow I really just quoted myself haha) An important part of science is communicating your experiment, the details, and the results, so others can compare the data and replicate the experiment properly. If someone else wanted to make the same experiment we did to compare results, they have to know exactly what is it that we did. 

If everyone decided to just do their own thing and not keep anything constant, then we wouldn't be able to communicate properly and there wouldn't be any understanding of what's going on. Science is understanding ourselves.

  

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