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dxu46 wrote: ↑September 28th, 2019, 7:43 am What would be some examples of Constants if I were to do a simple drop-height-rebound-height experiment with a ball? The only definitive ones I can think of are the speed of light and the force of gravity, but that seems a bit of a stretch. Others, like the ground on which the ball is dropped, can also be controlled variables, because you can change it, but overall I think Constants is a very loose section, unless I'm missing something?

Temperature of the room, gravity, air pressure, air humidity, etc. are all constants. The main difference that I see between controls and constants is what you physically can change in the experiment versus what you have no control in changing. So although you can argue that you can change the air pressure/temperature,etc. in general, you don't really have the ability to change these factors in your experiment at most competitions. However if you are given a way to change the temperature of the air where you're doing your experiment it would become a control.

My go to's for constants are always gravity, air temperature, and air pressure.

splane21 wrote: ↑September 28th, 2019, 9:21 am

dxu46 wrote: ↑September 28th, 2019, 7:43 am What would be some examples of Constants if I were to do a simple drop-height-rebound-height experiment with a ball? The only definitive ones I can think of are the speed of light and the force of gravity, but that seems a bit of a stretch. Others, like the ground on which the ball is dropped, can also be controlled variables, because you can change it, but overall I think Constants is a very loose section, unless I'm missing something?

Temperature of the room, gravity, air pressure, air humidity, etc. are all constants. The main difference that I see between controls and constants is what you physically can change in the experiment versus what you have no control in changing. So although you can argue that you can change the air pressure/temperature,etc. in general, you don't really have the ability to change these factors in your experiment at most competitions. However if you are given a way to change the temperature of the air where you're doing your experiment it would become a control.

My go to's for constants are always gravity, air temperature, and air pressure.

For my example, don't air temperature and pressure kind of not apply? There are a lot of constants in the universe, like speed of light and sound, pi, e, [insert mathematical constants] but they don't apply to most experiments. What would be some constants for my original example of the ball drop experiment?

dxu46 wrote: ↑September 28th, 2019, 9:58 am

splane21 wrote: ↑September 28th, 2019, 9:21 am

dxu46 wrote: ↑September 28th, 2019, 7:43 am What would be some examples of Constants if I were to do a simple drop-height-rebound-height experiment with a ball? The only definitive ones I can think of are the speed of light and the force of gravity, but that seems a bit of a stretch. Others, like the ground on which the ball is dropped, can also be controlled variables, because you can change it, but overall I think Constants is a very loose section, unless I'm missing something?

Temperature of the room, gravity, air pressure, air humidity, etc. are all constants. The main difference that I see between controls and constants is what you physically can change in the experiment versus what you have no control in changing. So although you can argue that you can change the air pressure/temperature,etc. in general, you don't really have the ability to change these factors in your experiment at most competitions. However if you are given a way to change the temperature of the air where you're doing your experiment it would become a control.

My go to's for constants are always gravity, air temperature, and air pressure.

For my example, don't air temperature and pressure kind of not apply? There are a lot of constants in the universe, like speed of light and sound, pi, e, [insert mathematical constants] but they don't apply to most experiments. What would be some constants for my original example of the ball drop experiment?

You can argue that they apply though. Air pressure will affect the density of the air which would affect the drag force. Thus, you can argue air pressure affects most physics based experiments. Temperature will affect almost every chemistry based experiment. Temperature could also affect material properties of the ball or the air around it. Yes these might be a stretch but you can make an argument that technically they could affect your results very very slightly. These are also values that can be changed if the experiment is done in a different environment and could give different results (however you don't have the ability to do the experiment in a different environment at conmpetition hence why it's a constant). Controls would be what you would change. With things like the speed of light, sound, pi, e, etc. you can';t exactly change pi to 2 instead of 3.14 in a different environment.

dxu46 wrote: ↑September 28th, 2019, 9:58 am

splane21 wrote: ↑September 28th, 2019, 9:21 am

dxu46 wrote: ↑September 28th, 2019, 7:43 am What would be some examples of Constants if I were to do a simple drop-height-rebound-height experiment with a ball? The only definitive ones I can think of are the speed of light and the force of gravity, but that seems a bit of a stretch. Others, like the ground on which the ball is dropped, can also be controlled variables, because you can change it, but overall I think Constants is a very loose section, unless I'm missing something?

Temperature of the room, gravity, air pressure, air humidity, etc. are all constants. The main difference that I see between controls and constants is what you physically can change in the experiment versus what you have no control in changing. So although you can argue that you can change the air pressure/temperature,etc. in general, you don't really have the ability to change these factors in your experiment at most competitions. However if you are given a way to change the temperature of the air where you're doing your experiment it would become a control.

My go to's for constants are always gravity, air temperature, and air pressure.

For my example, don't air temperature and pressure kind of not apply? There are a lot of constants in the universe, like speed of light and sound, pi, e, [insert mathematical constants] but they don't apply to most experiments. What would be some constants for my original example of the ball drop experiment?

I think just a tip in general for experimental design is not to overthink things and to go with ideas that come to your mind first. Chances are they will work in some way even if it's a stretch. You can also get away with a lot if you thorougly explain your reasoning as well.

What do you guys do for the Statistics CER, specifically the claim?
How do you avoid making it the same as the data trend stuff or the conclusion CER?

Here wrote: ↑October 8th, 2019, 1:18 pm What do you guys do for the Statistics CER, specifically the claim?
How do you avoid making it the same as the data trend stuff or the conclusion CER?

I usually did this in my analysis on the previous rubric with Standard Deviation. Easy statistics to analyze are Standard Deviation or Range. For example, you can explain that the standard deviation of times decrease as you drop a ball from a greater height because it's easier to measure longer times (less uncertainty). Your conclusion CER should be purely based on what you claimed for the hypothesis (ex. as you drop a ball from greater heights it takes a longer time to hit the ground...). You should use the averages for your conclusion CER so don't use that for the statistics CER (use some different statistic). If you know more statistics you might be able to get away with analyzing something like R^2, etc. but I always recommend that you keep it simple because if you do it wrong or the grader does not know what you're talking about, chances are you won't receive points for it. For the data trend CER I would claim something about the fact that the data has a positive direct relationship as shown by the line of best fi or something similar. So use line of best fit/graph for trend, averages for conclusion CER, and then some other statistic like SD for statistics CER.

Do you need to show all of your work to get full points in standard deviation?

I would think so, under the second line of Rubric II.J. (sample calculations) to get the full points for statistics of variation (II.J. #3), of which standard deviation is one.

aniSUKSatCHEM wrote: ↑October 21st, 2019, 4:10 pm Do you need to show all of your work to get full points in standard deviation?

Usually example calculations are enough to get full points so just show one example. It isn't that hard to write and won't take up that much more time. If you're really pressed on time just write down the formula and write "Calcualated using calculator" or something similar. I also know some supervisors who give full points for example calculations if you write down the definition of standard deviation and write that you used a calculator to calculate it (this is if you blank out on the formula)

For the Qualitative Observations, do the observations given throughout the experiment mean that the observations about the procedure/rules have to be given thorughout the experiment or do you need a specific section for 'other' observations that were given throughout the experiment because this year there is no space to put those observations on the Exp Design writeup template on soinc.org?

Also what do the before, during, after, on the sonic.og Exp Design's template mean? How are you supposed write an observation after the experiment on the procedure?