The End...

...Okay, not really. However, the rod snapped, Alan's dad is going to murder him! Oh no!

Well, that's the end of our experiments. Don't know how it happened, but a larger weight (1.8kg) was put on and it was fine. Then a lower weight was put on and it snapped. The rod held about 4 lbs before snapping.

Modifying the Experiment

We've been told to add weights until it touches the ground... That's quite difficult because of the height of the rod above the ground. So we've decided to modify the model a little. We've lowered the rod to decrease the height off the ground and re-do the experiment. This will allow the weight to touch the ground without the rod potentially breaking. If the rod breaks we wouldn't have another rod to experiment with.

Trials and Success!

We've tested the fishing rod idea out and it worked!

We used a vise clamp that was attached to a table and made sure the angle of the rod didn't change. We added the weights accordingly and watched the rod bend dramatically as we added weight and measured the height from the tip. The fishing rod looked like it was going to snap. If only we could have taken that picture of Nancy's face putting on those weights!

The data was then graphed and it was a success! The graph showed us the data is non linear.

We've also spoken to Mr. Alfano about our experiment and he was surprised it turned out to be non linear.

Submitting Our Ideas

After submitting all three of our new ideas, we ended up using the fishing rod idea... the other ones just got rejected.

Melting the marshmallows was rejected because we can't determine when the marshmallows have been completely melted.

Dropping the controlled mass into a liquid was also rejected because there are too many errors that could occur and we can't measure the water accurately.

The fishing rod idea was approved and we'll begin to test the idea out to see if its non-linear.

Brand New Ideas

We've come up with new ideas since we didn't like our original idea.

1. Melting marshmallows in a pot to determine how long it takes to completely dissolve.
2. Dropping a controlled mass into a fixed volume of liquid in a container to see how much liquid is lost.
3. Hanging a mass off the end of the line of a fishing rod to determine the change in height.

The first idea was Nancy's idea and we've established that she's a pyromaniac who likes to burn things.

IDEA

So Jen came up with this idea that we use a lever and drop a mass on the other side to see how far the object on the other end would travel. The fulcrum would be the independent variable as we move it up or down the lever. The idea doesn't seem that consistent, there seems to be too many possible outside factors that could affect the results. We've submitted the idea and it was accepted, but even Mr. Hneidi said it was inconsistent. We'll probably decide on another idea...