Week 4 - Swings


News/Introduction

Swings - PixelBay Images

This week in Science, we continued our exploration of making a playground fun and exciting. In lab specifically, we thought about the idea of swings and the period. We defined the period as the amount of time taken for the swing to make a full cycle from its starting position.  

For our lab experience today, we played around with washers, weights, and strings to determine what factors would affect the period of our makeshift swings. 

Created our swings in class

When sharing our results, we tried a method known as the Tuning Protocol. This process consists of 5 steps.

  1. Presentation to results to other groups/peers
  2. Listening groups and peers have time to ask questions for clarification.
  3. Listeners take notes and process the data.
  4. Listeners discuss "warm and cool" feedback to each other.
  5. Presenters respond to comments and questions

From this lab experience, we were able to determine what impacts the period of the a basic pendulum (in this case, a swing).

New Discoveries

When we discussed what affects the period of the swing, we looked at the following factors:
  • Weight
  • Length
  • Angle of Release

Weight

Weight does not impact the period of the swing because regardless of the weight attached to the swing, there is a constant force force of gravity (g - approximately 9.8 m/s). One group's results are as follows:

Swings and Weight

Length

Length does impact the period of the swing. A longer swing will take longer to complete a period. Conversely, a shorter swing impacts the period. Our group had the following results:

Swings Data and Graph

Angle of Release

When we look at pendulums (our swings), there are mixed results for the angle of release. If we release at a smaller initial angle, there is no impact on the period of the swing. If we release at a higher angle, the period is longer and longer. A third group had the following results:

Swings and Amplitude (Angle)

Connections

What do our results mean in the larger picture? This all has to do with energy. Energy can be manifested in multiple ways (wind, solar, electrical, gravitation, movement, etc.). This concept of energy is very important to physics. Energy can be transferred between objects, and more importantly cannot be created or destroyed. On pendulums, when we lift the pendulum, we are giving the system potential energy (gravitational energy). When the pendulum is moving, the pendulum has kinetic energy (movement energy). 

Potential and Kinetic Energy

What does it mean when the pendulum slows down? What is causing it to slow down? When our pendulum moves, the pendulum collides with air molecules. When this collision happens, the energy transfers from the pendulum to the air molecules. As a result, as the pendulum swings, it loses energy to the air molecules and swings lower and slower until coming to rest. This concept is how the idea of a swing works.

Collision between pendulum and air molecules

The Future

After looking at our swing and learning about how to make our playgrounds exciting and safe by looking at playground surfaces!

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