Simple Pendulum Experiment Lab Report

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The Simple Pendulum Experiment

General Plan

The first thing I am going to do is outline a general plan for this experiment.

In this experiment, I am going to be measuring the effect of two variables on the time of one oscillation of a simple pendulum.

The two variables that I have chosen are the length of the pendulum's string and the mass of the pendulum's bob.

I will vary these two items and record results for the time of one oscillation of a pendulum with different mass/length of string.

I must also be able to determine the value for acceleration due to gravity (hereby referred to as g)

To do this, I must be able to find some equation that links length of a string of a pendulum …show more content…

Aim

The aim of this experiment is to determine the effects of two factors on the time of one oscillation (or swing) of the simple pendulum, and also to determine a value for g (acceleration due to gravity)

Design

Before producing a plan I will conduct a preliminary experiment this will help me find and basic flaws in the set-up of my experiment, and will also allow me to find room for improvement on my actual experiment. It will also allow me to experiment with different values for my variables, to find suitable limits to my measurements, and to find a suitable interval between my measurements of these variables.

After gaining the results of this experiment, I will be able to plan my main experiment more thoroughly.

Preliminary Experiment

The diagram below shows a brief set-up of the simple pendulum experiment

The pendulum (3) will be held by a clamp stand (1) which will be placed on a work bench table (2)

Fig. 1: Simple Pendulum Experiment Set-up

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Figure …show more content…

The stool is placed on a table/workbench.

The mass of the pendulum is kept constant during this experiment

The length of the pendulum's string is variable for this experiment

I will use a ruler to measure my pendulum's string, and ensure that it is at my start value, which I have chosen to be 80cm (0.8m).

I have chosen this value because lengths of greater than 2m will be too long and the pendulum will hit the floor. If the pendulum's string is too short then the time for an oscillation will be minute, and hard to measure. Also, 80cm is easy to measure with a metre rule.

The ruler is accurate to within ±0.0005m

The Digital Chronometer is accurate to within ±0.005s

I will then set-up my experiment as shown in Fig 3 on Page 7. I will then use the digital stopwatch to measure the time for 30 oscillations, and record my results in a table.

I will repeat the above, but increasing the length of the pendulum's swing by 10cm each time (up to 150cm) using a ruler to make sure the length of the string is accurate, until the final length (1.5m) has been

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