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Ballistic Pendulum Lab Report and Analysis

The document provides instructions for writing a lab report about a ballistic pendulum experiment. It explains that the goal of the experiment is to investigate how a ballistic pendulum works and apply the principles of conservation of energy and momentum. It outlines the key components that should be included in the lab report such as an introduction, hypothesis, description of procedures, data/measurements, analysis, conclusion, and diagrams or tables. The analysis section specifies that students should perform a discrepancy test comparing measured and predicted ranges and derive an error propagation formula to calculate the uncertainty in the range.

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Luis Pedrero
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200 views2 pages

Ballistic Pendulum Lab Report and Analysis

The document provides instructions for writing a lab report about a ballistic pendulum experiment. It explains that the goal of the experiment is to investigate how a ballistic pendulum works and apply the principles of conservation of energy and momentum. It outlines the key components that should be included in the lab report such as an introduction, hypothesis, description of procedures, data/measurements, analysis, conclusion, and diagrams or tables. The analysis section specifies that students should perform a discrepancy test comparing measured and predicted ranges and derive an error propagation formula to calculate the uncertainty in the range.

Uploaded by

Luis Pedrero
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ballistic Pendulum Lab report and analysis

F1008. Experimentación física y pensamiento estadístico. Luis Pedrero


The idea behind of this practicum or lab analysis is to investigate how a ballistic pendulum works
and to get experience using the conservation of energy together with the conservation of
momentum. You will measure the height that the pendulum rises to and then use that to predict
the range of the ball when fired off the front desk. You also will get insight into the experimental
measurements and its associated error. The document where everything is explained is handed on
a separated file.

Lab report
You need to do a lab report for this lab. You must record all data for this lab in your lab book. You
should do the theory derivations now in your lab report.

Style of the lab report: pretend you are a scientist. Your goals: • clearly communicate precisely
what you did, and the results you got • let others know exactly how to repeat your experiment,
confirm your results • introduce the reader of any theory involved

What to assume about the reader: • they do not know what was on the instruction sheet • they
do not know what precise equipment you used • they already know how to use all the equipment
• they are skeptical

The lab report should contain: • an introduction: what are you investigating in this experiment,
introduce a reader to what you did and how • the hypothesis: the theoretical predictions you are
trying to test • a description of the experimental procedure and all equipment used • your data /
measurements • analysis: how well did your data agree with the predictions? • conclusion: Does
the theory seem correct? Does your data support it? If not, why not? If there are a few data points
that deviate from predictions, try to explain what may have occurred. Were there any sources of
experimental error? Were they systematic or random? What would you do differently in the
future to improve this experiment? What other related questions could you investigate in similar
experiments?

Diagrams and tables are often very helpful • do not make statements without evidence • do error
analysis or give percentage differences where appropriate

Analysis
Do a discrepancy test comparing the measured range and the predicted one. Derive an error
propagation formula for the uncertainty in the range δR given the uncertainties in the measured
quantities. You do not have to calculate δR unless you wish to. It will come out very small if you
do. Think about errors and approximations in this experiment. (Does δR fully reflect them?)

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