Waves Lab: Design a Seismograph

I. GUIDING QUESTION/S (State the guiding question/s):
How does the the movement of the pen/needle word vs. the needle not moving?

II.HYPOTHESIS: If you have an idea about why something happens, make an educated guess, or
hypothesis that you can test. What do you predict will occur?
I don’t think that the moving pen will record the wave lines properly, because i think that it will jump and appear as dotted lines.

III. Exploration (PLAN & DO A TEST):
(Materials) List the instruments and materials you will use
(Procedure) Lists the steps required to replicate the
experiment
Materials:
- cardboard
- felt tip pen
- LOTS of tap :)
- scissors
- ruler

Procedure:
1. gather materials
2. Put together and cut cardboard box
3. place paper in box
4. tape ruler to wall (set up so pen can move)
5. Test
6.tape ruler to wall (set up so pent can’t move
7. Test
8. Record

IV. RECORD & ANALYZE (Observe carefully and write down, or record,
everything that happens. When you finish
collecting data, you may need to do som




IV. Concept Acquisition (CONCLUSION): State the guiding question.
Present the relevant experimental results. Discuss the
relationship between variables. What can you conclude?
Was your prediction correct? If yes, explain. If no,
explain what you understand now about this investigation
and how it taught you something new.
Our investigation/experiment was to show the difference between the recordings when the pen moved and when the pen was stationary. We concluded that with the pen being steady that it was easier to record the earth quake levels than with the unsteady pen. Making our hypothesis correct.

V. Concept Application (FURTHER INQUIRY): Examine the validity of
your data and infer what you think the major causes of
error may have been. Propose methods of improvement. For
example, what modifications did you need to make or would
make next time? Whatever happens in a test, think about all
the reasons for your results. Sometimes this thinking
leads to a new hypothesis. Write down these new hypotheses
(predictions) or inquiries (questions) you may have here in
this section.
I think that we could have built a steadier structure because if it worked one times it usually didn’t work the next because it would mess up in someway during the earlier earthquake that we created. So i think that by building a sturdier structure our investigation could have taken less times.
another experiment that i would try (as further inquiry) is if by changing the weight of the pen could it record better because it would be harder for the pen/needle to jump.