GCSE Practical Assessment – The Pendulum
Aim
To investigate how the period of a pendulum depends on its length.
Plan
Well pendulums have been around for a long time and have been the centre of timing devices. An example of this are the Grandfather Clocks, their important feature being that they are isochronous.
One complete oscillation
This basically means that the pendulum takes the same time for every swing. There are many factors that may affect the time for one complete swing of the pendulum; this is called the period of the pendulum. These factors could include the length of the pendulum and the weight of the pendulum. This information will help me decide how many results to take in my experiment. Well in my experiment I am going to measure the time it will take my pendulum to travel different number of distances by increasing the length of the pendulum 5 times. I will repeat my results twice so that they will be fair and accurate. I will keep the weight of the plastersine on the end of my pendulum the same so again the results will be accurate. I will take a range of measurements which will include the 5 different lengths of string that will be 10cm, 20cm, 30cm, 40cm and 50cm. I will then make measurements of the time for 5 swings and then 10 swings. Finally I will find the average for 1 swing from the results I gained from the time for 5 swings, I will do this by dividing by 5. I will do the same for 10 swings and work out the average for 10 swings.
