Experimental Design

[madscientist]

first timers for this one any study tips anything would help thanks

[ktrujillo52]

The way to study for this event is to practice with your teammates. Also, I was wondering if we are allowed to bring graphing calculators to the event, it would really help with the regression line.

[dudeincolorado]

i dont think you cant bring one you should be able to draw a line of best fit without a graphing calculator i mean its not INSANELY hard

[ktrujillo52]

What if its not a linear regression...

[dudeincolorado]

like exponential? that would be interesting but unless you are doing something chemistry based i wouldn't think that that would happen i mean physics and expontalness just dont go that well together

[madscientist]

look im so loving this event but can you give me some examples of what they give you at the test my partners and i are first timers and 6th graders

[ZekeBud]

@madscientist: I'd check out the other posts in this thread with information about examples of equipment given.

As for the last few posts, I'd say that dudeincolorado is pretty dead on.

Please remember that this is event only lasts for about an hour (actually less... but whatever). You're not going to have oodles of data to play with here. Plot your graph in an appropriate space and with a decent scale. Then, just draw that line. Yes, this is estimating, but such is the nature of this event.

This also lends itself to another important point: you're going to talk about sources of error in the experiment. Guess what: your data is a source of error! Because you have done a relatively small number of trials, it's hard to really say that what you have is statistically significant. But this provides a great point of error in every lab you'll do. Use it!

[ktrujillo52]

could someone explain how the statement of problem should be?

[dudeincolorado]

hmmmm i haven;t done this in a while so anyone correct me if they feel the need so

Problem:
(good version) How does changing the starting hight of the balloon affect the time it takes to fall?
(bad version) do balloons take longer to fall when they are higher?
Notes! make sure its how question and not a yes or no question and make sure your question needs a long explanation it the answer is just yes you have a problem, it should also be able to work both ways like the bad version you can only go up but with the good version you can go up or down. Hope this helps

[froggiefrog]

. Also, I was wondering if we are allowed to bring graphing calculators to the event, it would really help with the regression line.

according to the rules, you can bring "a non-programmable calculator"