Some of you are feeling really uncomfortable right about now; not sure what you should be doing with your lab, maybe a bit confused or frustrated. Believe it or not, those are good things. It means you care about doing this right, getting a good grade and maybe even learning something! It’s called taking you out of your “comfort zone” and it’s the place where some real learning can happen.

In this lab you were to examine mechanical advantage using a simple machine called an incline plane. That means you were going to investigate, experiment and play with an inclined plane to see if changing it in someway had an affect on this thing called mechanical advantage.

Our approach was to start with things we already knew. Some of this came from notes on work, and ideal and actual mechanical advantage. Other things came from prior labs where we used an incline plane and/or where we measured different forces. This gave us some ideas on how we might conduct an experiment.

Next was to do some background research. This is where you go exploring. Look information up in your textbooks, other classroom resources and the internet. The more you know about incline planes, ideal and actual mechanical advantage, work and efficiency the better. Part of your research should also have included “playing” with the equipment — doing some testing to see what happens and how to best set it up.

Out of this comes your experimental design, how you will conduct the experiment, what you will measure, and your hypothesis. Skimping on the research and design results in poor quality and wasted work. Planning is very important.

Now you are collecting the data and calculating various things like work, mechanical advantage and efficiency. You’re also making graphs, drawing conclusions, looking for patterns and making comparisons.

Some of you are doing an excellent job — keeping up with your classwork and doing some extra at home. It pays off by giving you some time to discuss your findings with me and confirm that you have done the write-up properly.

Keep up the good work. There is more pleasure in succeeding at something that is difficult than there is when you take the easy route.

We are continuing our study of simple machines by creating an experiment which will allow us to explore mechanical advantage using an inclined plane. To review work and mechanical advantage follow this link, in addition you can use the links provided on the Home Study page under “Study Resources”.

Remember this lab is worth 100 points so it is important to do your very best. All work should be neat and follow the Lab Guideline and Grading Rubric. For periods 1, 3, 4, and 6 the lab will be due at the end of the period this Wednesday. For period 5 it will be due on Thursday.

This is a very busy week for you. Besides the lab you will be receiving worksheets to complete for homework and your Science News Review is due on Wednesday. Don’t get behind, do you work each day.