caroline.st18 Posted September 5, 2012 Report Share Posted September 5, 2012 (edited) Could you please help me with my first physics lab design? I need to design 2 experiments: one about coffee cooling and the other one about popcorn. I know these are really weird topics but our teacher gave us them to practice.I formulated some research questions to these topics, but i don't know if they are correct.1. How does the temperature affects on the speed of coffee cooling?2. How does the temperature of oil affects on time of making popcorn?Assess my questions and define variables (because I have a problem with it). Edited October 18, 2012 by Sandwich Please don't use chatspeak. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dniviE Posted September 5, 2012 Report Share Posted September 5, 2012 First of all, both of your research questions are quite "un-scientific". You should try to aim at doing a lab at something that's more scientific in physics terms. If you have water and a kettle (water boiler) you could for example do something on heat capacity. Also a great tip when doing physics design lab reports is to formulate your research question so that you could land upon a constant in the end. In the case of heat capacity for water you could for example compare the value obtained from the experiment to an accepted value. Good luck! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroline.st18 Posted September 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2012 thanks a lot for tips, i will use them in the future for sure, but right now i think it is not about scientific side of an experiment (coz i'm not going to realize it), but to define right variables and describe the method in detail. Does anybody have another idea how to formulate this design? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dniviE Posted September 6, 2012 Report Share Posted September 6, 2012 Are you actually going to do these design labs or are they just a sample where you have to define variables and describe the method? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroline.st18 Posted September 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 6, 2012 they are just a sample where u have to define variables and describe the method. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sword (Hubert Pomorski) Posted September 8, 2012 Report Share Posted September 8, 2012 Well...Well, introduction introduces. Some words about aim, etc. It is quite obvious, I hope.Firstly, create an question. After question set an hypothesis: "The higher temperature of oil is, the faster is popcorn cooking'. When you would start real experiments: "x dependency from y has linear/quadratic/square root/etc nature."Then, tell an examiner/teacher what can be measured and what can you 'change' freely. It gives the field for the dependent and independent variables. E.g. in 2nd topic: temperature of oil would be independent <although it'd be risky thing because of many reasons...> and time needed for given weight of corn would be dependent. Also, set (nomen omen) the set of your controlled variables. These are constants that may have influence on your experiment but you are not concerned about it. E.g. the atmospheric pressure, temperature of the room.Then, describe method. Step by step. No exception. Every single picture that makes instruction even more clarified is more than good. Then, describe limitations of your method. It is quite important. In that case, you cannot measure temperature of oil after putting popcorn there.Well, I haven't ended all of my internals, so I would like to be criticised, if I told sth wrong 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroline.st18 Posted September 9, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 9, 2012 Sword, thanks for tips : > Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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