The Seismograph Test

Seismograph Lab
Guiding Question: Does adding to more chopstick for stability improve the readings on the seismograph?
Hypothesis: I think that the reading will be better because the pen is more stable and will catch even the slightest bump.
Materials:

1. one 17-inch marker
2. four 23-inch wooden chopsticks
3. 2 average bendy straws
4. two 4 cm (in height) boxes
5. One 30 by 42 cm piece of cardboard
6. Duct Tape
7. A Ruler
8. Paper
9. Tape
10. A notebook and pencil

Procedure:

1. Place the two 4cm boxes about apart, you must then place one chopstick on the top so it spreads across the the two boxes like a bridge. Se Figure A below as an example:

Figure A:

2. Then place the end of a single chopstick on the horizontal chopstick. See Figure B as an example:

3. After you have done this you can add the two straws to the sides by attaching them to the corners of the boxes and then turning them diagonally towards the center chopstick and attaching them there. See Figure C for example:
4. You are now ready to add the felt tip marker, make sure to use a felt tip because it will transfer easier onto the paper. Simply duct tape the pen onto the ends of all the straws and chopstick. See Figure D for an example:
5. Then for the first test tape multiple sheets of paper together to make a long strip. Place this strip of paper at the beginning and have a partner shake the table while you move the sheet slowly. This will leave an almost zig-zag line on the paper. If you want to see how I did it go to the bottom of this post for a video.

6. After you have done that repeat the same thing except you must add two more chopsticks to make the whole structure more stable this is how we will test the stability. To see where to place the chopsticks look at Figure E:
7. After you have recorded both tries you can now compare see which test was straighter and easier to read. Below are these pictures of the tests: The yellow paper is the test with a stable seismograph and the white paper is the test with the unstable seismograph.

b<----- Same as above

C. Analysis of Data: According to the information I got when I compared the two tests I found that the stabler the seismograph the better it works. As you can see in the tests the one that was tested with the more stable seismograph was in a straighter line and didn’t move around as much, making less streaks on the page. As you can see on the drawing with the less stable seismograph it goes of the page and there are random blue streaks where it slipped from it’s place.
IV. Concept Acquisition (CONCLUSION): So does the seismograph without the stabilizing chopsticks work better that the seismograph without? According to my research the seismograph with the stabilizing chopsticks worked much better than the seismograph without ones. This is because it didn’t move around as much so the results were clearer and easier to read. I can conclude that a stable seismograph is much better (and works much better) then a non stable one. This means that my prediction was correct, I thought that the prediction I made would make sense because stable to me works much better then unstable.

V. Concept Application (FURTHER INQUIRY): I think I carried out this test quite well because my seismograph was built quite quickly and the tests were done quite quickly to. One problem I had was how to shake the seismograph because sometimes when I shook the seismograph it made the pattern go in a loop and not straight up and down, so this created a problem for me. To solve this I tried shaking the seismograph by holding onto the two smaller boxes, balancing the weight equally. Other than that nothing really went wrong on my testing. To further investigate this I could see if weight effects the seismograph when you build it.

The Video