Experimental Design B/C

[Liv]

Thus is my first time doing experimental design at the regional level, what type of experiments do they do at regionals?

[zyzzyva980]

Quizbowl, yes, they are. Ramps and pendulums are easiest, go with those. Trajectoryroxs, we've consistently had various common chemicals, water, etc, but like most competitions it could be anything.

[quizbowl]

Are the majority of the experiments usually physics related?

I remember my partner said that two years ago at NY states it was a biology experiment

[zyzzyva980]

It can be, but the majority are physics.

[quizbowl]

Quizbowl, yes, they are. Ramps and pendulums are easiest, go with those. Trajectoryroxs, we've consistently had various common chemicals, water, etc, but like most competitions it could be anything.

Lets say it was either a ramp or a pendulum. What would you design your experiment around?

[zyzzyva980]

Uh... a ramp or a pendulum. We use a ramp most often, increasing the angle/height of the ramp as the IV and the DV being the distance the object travels after leaving the ramp (HINT: The object must be able to roll down the ramp!). Pendulums we don't do as much, but weights on the pendulum as opposed time it takes the pendulum to make one- can't think of the word, but- one swing back and forth

[quizbowl]

Uh... a ramp or a pendulum. We use a ramp most often, increasing the angle/height of the ramp as the IV and the DV being the distance the object travels after leaving the ramp (HINT: The object must be able to roll down the ramp!). Pendulums we don't do as much, but weights on the pendulum as opposed time it takes the pendulum to make one- can't think of the word, but- one swing back and forth

Period?
Yeah, we did the same at regionals, but got a meager 8th, then again most teams started much earlier...

[zyzzyva980]

Speed is extremely important here, just don't go so fast you miss something. Be efficient. Efficiency is key.

[quizbowl]

Speed is extremely important here, just don't go so fast you miss something. Be efficient. Efficiency is key.

Yeah, I'm sure we finished in time, but we never got to writing possible uses for the experiment

[Liv]

Speed is extremely important here, just don't go so fast you miss something. Be efficient. Efficiency is key.

Yeah, I'm sure we finished in time, but we never got to writing possible uses for the experiment

As I said before, you need to split up the team, I take care of the whole experiment everything, the data, graph, data table, mean median and mode, and of course Possible Experimental Errors(and human). Depending on the "level of hard-ness" of the lab you can easily decide how many people you want doing the experiment, taking in how much time you have etc, For example, States last year, parachutes, SUCH A FUN EXPERIMENT, but we had two people on the experiment and one person writing, the experiment was fairly easy but also very annoying (the marbles would fall out of the parachute and you would have to go find them) So, we decided to have one person doing the experiment and another picking up the marbles and setting it up. We finished, 60/60 we got DQ'ed. gotta love those proctors and judges -.-