This Lab will be assessed against all the assessment criteria.

The period of a pendulum as it swings back and forth is affected by a variety of factors. In this lab you will design several experiments to investigate what the important factors are. Once you identify the important factors your objective is to find a quantitative relationship between the period of the pendulum and each factor.

• First write down all the factors that you think might influence the period of the pendulum. Consider those factors that you might be able to control or vary and give a qualitative hypothesis of how you expect varying each factor will affect the period.
• Next use dimensional analysis to hypothesise a quantitative relationship between period and each of the important variables.
• For each factor design an experiment which allows you to collect enough data to test your hypothesis. In each experiment make sure you keep all but one of the variables constant. As you vary each factor decide on what is a suitable range and number of measurement to make.
• Plot a suitable graph so that the observed data can be quantitatively analysed and compared with your hypothesis. Preferably this will be plotted in a way that, based on you hypothesis, you would get a linear graph.
• Finally make an evaluation of your results and your experimental procedure and comment on how successfully you were at predicting the behaviour of the pendulum.