27-Feb-2017: A power law for an inertial pendulum. Lab Partners: Kevin Tran; Kevin Nguyen.

This experiment was focused primarily on teaching students how to use an inertial pendulum, how to find correlations between masses and periods of oscillations, and on how to interpret the data to obtain a graph in the form of a mathematical point-slope formula.

This is an image of the inertial pendulum and how it was set up with the monitoring sensor of the Logger Pro application. NOTE: This is also a picture taken during the part of the lab that we had to find an unknown mass.

This experiment began with the set-up of the inertial pendulum and a monitoring system application known as Logger Pro that has the ability to sense periods of oscillations, make graphs, and derive a mathematical formula with the ability to derive one accurate enough to obtain unknown masses of different objects.  Then, known masses (in the form of molded brass) were placed on an inertial pendulum and the periods of oscillations were recorded in order to create several graphs.  Although, the data in respect to the mass of the tray of the balance used had to be manipulated so that we could derive fairly accurate formulas for different ranges of precision.  Next, an iphone and a wallet were placed on the balance and the periods of oscillation were recorded so that we could use our formula to conclude the masses of the two items used.  Lastly, the data that we gathered from the experiment proved helpful in the cause to find the unknown masses of the iphone and the wallet.

This is an image of the natural log graph recorded with the use of the data that was obtained during the experiment.  Note that the formula (in the form of point-slope) is visible to the right of the image. The time axis is in respect to the mass on the balance and of the tray of the balance; the speed axis is in respect to the period of oscillation.    

                                    Another image of the data recorded during the experiment.

This is an image of the calculations used to determine the masses of the iphone and the wallet.  On the top of the image one can see the mathematical formula used for this experiment.

In summary, we used an inertial pendulum and an application named Logger Pro to create data that was later used to create a formula that can facilitate the approximation of an unknown mass without the need of gravity.  The data was manipulated and the results concluded to be fairly accurate.  As for the possibility of errors, they are very likely since the chance of human error and technological error feels like a high possibility given the experiment was not strictly controlled.