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Pendulum Lab Report

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josiahacurrier
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19 views4 pages

Pendulum Lab Report

Lab report

Uploaded by

josiahacurrier
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Pendulum Period Lengths Depending on Washer Weight

Author: Mason Currier


Team Members: Josiah Denney, Caedmon Harrison
Date of Experiment: February 2, 2023
Date Report Submitted: February 6, 2023
Class: Introductory Physics,
Faith Hezel, Instructor

Purpose
The purpose of this experiment was to investigate how the period lengths of a homemade
pendulum change according to how many washers are hanging at the end.

Background
A pendulum is an object that hangs from a fixed point and swings back and forth due to the
force of gravity. A simple pendulum consists of a weight connected to a light thread. The longer
the thread, the longer the swing time which known as the period. A full period is completed
when the pendulum makes a full back and forth arc starting from and ending back up at a point
on a far end of the arc. The swing is constant until air resistance slows it to a stop.

Our hypothesis was that added weight would not drastically affect the pendulum’s period but
added air resistance through added washers would.

Experimental Procedure
Material used in the experiment:
Light roll of string
0.5’’ by 1.5’’ Zinc Washers (4)
Yard Stick
Paper clip
Roll of tape
Stopwatch

To create the pendulum the team taped the yard stick down to a flat table, leaving about a foot
hanging over the edge. The string was then tied to the yardstick and cut to a length of 60 cm
from where it was tied on the yard stick to where it was then tied to the paper clip. The string
hanging on the ruler was against the table edge but not brushing against it. The end of the
hanging paper clip was then bent into a hook on which we hung two washers to start.

Now that our pendulum was created, we began the trials. As the individual periods were
predicted to be only a second or two, we timed how long ten periods took and divided that
count by ten to find the average of the individual periods. One team member counted down
and released the pendulum from table height. At this moment the second team member began
the stopwatch which timed the ten periods in seconds. The third team member counted of ten
periods and when the tenth was finished instructed the timer was stopped. This procedure was
done three times with a weight of two washers, another three times with four washers, and a
final three times with six washers.

Then the times of ten periods for the three trials of each of the three weights were divided by
ten to find the lengths of a single period. The induvial period lengths of each group were then
averaged out.

Results
The lengths of the times of the trials along with the averages are shown in Table 1
Table 1: Number of washers and period lengths (seconds)
Number of Time of 10 Time of 1 period Average period
Washers periods (sec) (sec) length
2 Trial 1 17.10 1.710 1.696 sec
Trial 2 16.90 1.690
Trial 3 16.87 1.687
4 Trial 1 17.35 1.735 1.743 sec
Trial 2 17.53 1.753
Trial 3 17.40 1.740
6 Trial 1 17.59 1.759 1.759 sec
Trial 2 17.56 1.756
Trial 3 17.63 1.763

Discussion
Overall, within each group our measurements from each set of three trials were extremely
alike, only tenths of seconds off. We predicted that the added weight of washers would slightly
affect the period time, more air resistance from added washers making the pendulum not
swing as fast. This hypothesis is supported by the results, but none of us thought that added
washers would affect the results with such slight changes to decimals. Tenths of a second
guessed rather than hundredths and thousandths.

Our experiment was smooth and the three-man system of release, count, and time worked
excellently. On a few occasions we had to repeat trials when the pendulum would swing and hit
the table halfway through its first period after release. Despite this occasionally happening, the
pendulum swung only side to side and didn’t stray into an ovular rotation. Counting only
successful trials and not the few do-overs, our results are definitive in supporting the
hypothesis.
Conclusion
In conclusion our results support our hypothesis. For further experimentation we have
predicted some lurking variables that could be removed such as if the string was too thick, the
washers possibly brushing the table, or the stopwatch timer being started too late or early.
Going down to one washer would be interesting to test as well as adding more to see how
linear or non-linear the pattern is.

References
1. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "pendulum". Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 May. 2022,
https://www.britannica.com/technology/pendulum. Accessed 3 February 2023.

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