Essay On Pendulum

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Research and Background A pendulum is an object hanging from a fixed point with a mass that swings back and forth under the influence of gravity. Sometimes this mass is called a bob, as it bobs up and down as it swings side to side. Pendulums are acted upon by three main forces: gravity, tension, and air resistance. While gravity always pulls down on the bob, tension pulls upward towards the pivot point for the string on the rod, or where the string pivots. However, both the amount and the direction of the pendulum’s tension changes as it swings. When the pendulum swings left of its equilibrium position, or the place where the pendulum comes to rest, gravity is still acting downward, but the tension is acting towards the pivot point, so it …show more content…

I would make two changes to the setup. The first change would be to instead of having people drop the pendulum and record the period, robot’s would perform the task. Robots would allow the experiment to be fully automated, and will ensure that there is no chance for human error, allowing the data to be accurate and precise. I would also change where the protractor is placed. Instead of having it taped the bottom of the string, I would place it towards the top where the string pivots on the rod. If a protractor is placed towards the bottom of the string, when lifting the pendulum to a certain drop angle, it won’t really drop from that angle, as only a certain part of the string is dropping from that angle. Placing the protractor higher will allow the drop angle to be more accurate. After testing the pendulum with the different variables, we found that the only variable that seems to change the period of the pendulum is the length of the string. This is because the longer the string length of the pendulum is, the longer it has to swing, resulting in a longer period of the pendulum. When we performed the control experiment with 70 cm, of string, the average period was 1.68 seconds. When we tested the period of the pendulum with only 40 cm. of string, the period of the pendulum became 1.25

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