Lab Report SL Physics IA

[flamicecream]

My given IA is to investigate what affects the period of a simple pendulum. I cannot investigate mass, length of string, angle of rotation, or gravity.

I was thinking maybe use different strings and talk about elasticity or something along those lines..? Thoughts/ideas?

Edited February 11, 2011 by flamicecream

[Drake Glau]

Those are really annoying restrictions...

How about the size of the mass at the end of the string? Find more dense and less dense objects so the mass will remain constant but the size of the object itself will be bigger or smaller. Could test how much wind resistance will affect the period. This is really all I could think at the moment

[Kydas]

I am in a similar dilemma too

I can only think of changing the angle. Changing the size but not the mass would be difficult. Would wind resistance be a suitable variable though?

Edited June 1, 2011 by Kydas

[Drake Glau]

You have to find a way to control how much wind resistance is occurring, so in a practical sense, no it's dumb.

Angle of the string? It won't change much. If you make the angle closer to 90 degrees (all the way up) the extra potential energy will provide enough kinetic energy to make up for the distance change making the period the same...period never changes unless you change the string length.

But you can change the angle if you want and your conclusion will end up being something along the lines of what I jut said. I'd advise a more thorough explanation however You could also add math to that explanation I believe. There's a few equations with periods involved and stuff that you could derive and rearrange to find some sort of relation you can use.

Edited June 1, 2011 by Drake Glau