Experimental Design B/C

[Astroknight]

Very often in the B division, we aren't given devices to weigh with.
*Cough* Regionals *Cough*

If there's nothing to weigh it with, there's just nothing you can do about it to make it more accurate. It's the same for all teams, and if the supervisors decide to not give you a scale, there's not advantage or disadvantage given.

[phil9047]

For those of you with experience, what is the best way to divide the work? Some people are suggesting dividing the work by topic (aka writer, doer, and helper), and others are suggesting other things. Maybe not what is the best, but what are some options?

[ThatRoboGuy]

We usually do it like so:
P1: Statement of Problem - Standard of Comparison (whole first page), Analysis and Interpretation, Conclusion
P2: Materials, procedure, errors, Recommendations for further use
P3: Experiment, Qualitative & Quantitative data, graph, statistics
P1 or 2 would help experiment if necessary, typically multitasking.

[phil9047]

I was thinking that one person should do Hypothesis, Data, Analysis, and Conclusion since they seem so related to each other.

[Phys1cs]

P1: Statement of problem - Materials, conclusion
P2: Lab, Experimental error, Recommendations for further use, and qualitative data
P3: Graph, Quantitative data, Statistics, the "Show how you did your Statistics"

then we all help whomever if we fall behind or need some help wording or whatever. Our regional we had 15 minutes for one person to write a conclusion while the other did a ton of standard deviation. Having the time was really weird

[Asteroidea]

We usually do pre-lab, stats, post-lab

So pre-lab would be first column on the rubric, stats would be parts h-k and post-lab would be l,m,n

[phil9047]

We usually do pre-lab, stats, post-lab

So pre-lab would be first column on the rubric, stats would be parts h-k and post-lab would be l,m,n

How does the timing work out though? Don't you need to do the experiment first before doing stats and post-lab?

[phil9047]

I have a few questions.
What does the scoring rubric mean by "example calculations given" in the quantitative data section?
Also, what are the tiebreakers?
Finally, how do the judges distinguish between all the perfect papers, especially at the national level? Do they just grade harder? If so, how?

[Phys1cs]

What does the scoring rubric mean by "example calculations given" in the quantitative data section?

Showing how you got your data. If you had a data set of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, it would look similar to:

Mean: (1+2+3+4+5)/5 = 3
Median: 1 2 3 4 5 (because I can't figure out how to strikethrough, matching colors are crossed out to get the median of 3)

Mode: None, no numbers repeat

etc. Basically you just do the math for one set of numbers. Just next to your data table, write something like "all data computated and shown *insert place* is used with the data set of the control" and that shows you know how to do the math asked for the statistics

[Asteroidea]

How does the timing work out though? Don't you need to do the experiment first before doing stats and post-lab?

Everyone starts doing their part at the beginning, (well actually we usually spend 2-3 min coming up with the experiment) the stats person starts the experiment, the prelab write the hypothesis, statement of problem etc. Usually you can anticipate the errors that will occur (ie you didn't drop the ball from the same height, the ball didn't roll down the ramp in a straight line, the timing is inaccurate etc) even though all of these seem really simple, they ultimately do contribute to the overall accuracy of the experiment. Also the post-lab person will have a sort of "formula" memorized in how to write their section so they'll just draw a line for data or conclusions that haven't been drawn yet and come back and fill it in later.