Water Drop Lab

Science WATER DROP WAVE LAB

Guiding questions: 

1. When water is dropped from a pipette int oa pan of water, how does the wave behave?
2. What properties does a mechanical have have? 
3. How do waves interact with each other and with solid objects in their paths? 

Hypothesis: Every action, has an opposite or equal reaction. 

DATA ANALYSIS:

Every time there is a light object in front of where I dropped a drop of water, it either moved slightly or the waves went underneath it. If there was an obstacle like clay or some kind of solid object, the water waves would bounce off and go in different directions depending on the shape of the object. The reason it would depend on the shape of the object is because if you have an object that is like a stick of clay, it would bounce strait, on the other hand, if it’s a rounded off object, then the waves would go off in a more circular motion. It all depends on what the amplitude of the water drop is, if it is high amplitude, that means that the water drop is huge, if the amplitude is lower, then that means that the water drop is smaller. And it also depends on the frequency. If it is high frequency, then there will be much more waves than there would be in low frequency.

CONCLUSION:

The properties of mechanical waves are:

• ·       waves have wavelengths: The wavelength is the distance from one peak to the next, or from one trough to the next.
• ·        Amplitudes: The amplitude is the maximum height of a wave from its rest position
• ·        frequency’s: The frequency is the number of waves per second.
• Periods: The period and the frequency are related by the equation: f = 1/T. The period of a wave is the time between one crest and the next appearing, this is also true for troughs.

FURTHER INQUIRY:

The only possible thing that I would change is having a more accurate way to see my waves, because I had to really look hard at the little ripples in the water to see where they were going, and it was also hard because the little ripples faded away very fast so I couldn’t really keep track of where they went, so I had to kind of guess at it.