Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Last Wednesday we performed the experiment on uniform acceleration, not as it was described in the lab manual, but letting the students time the progress of a metal ball down an inclined ramp.

First they had to mark the position of the ball on the ramp per second until it fell off the end of the ramp. This they had to do for three trials. Second they marked off specific distances on the ramp and timed those, again for three trials each.

The second set up was from one of the high school books that were donated by the other schools of the system from around the world. The books we had segregated had been carted from storage to the library under the supervision of the Dean, and some of the books were brought to the faculty room.

It was just my good fortune that one of the books placed on the table beside the door was one that I could actually use, and immediately. The book describes several experiments for testing the same concepts covered in my lecture class and the lab class, but apparently using everyday materials and highly simplified procedures.

Since we were not using the set-up described in the book, I had to type up our own procedure and tables. Now I see the importance of having all the procedure first before giving the data tables. Since the procedure and table for Part I fit in one page, I put them there together.

The students for the most part tried to finish the table for Part I first before even beginning with the measurements in Part II and Table II (on the second page), which as far as I could see takes longer to accomplish that performing all the measurements first and all the computations and graphing afterwards.

I also realized that for the three trials, it’s easier to get the average of the distances measured first, then compute for the velocity and the acceleration, instead of having three columns of velocity and acceleration afterwards.

They still had to graph their results though, using the graphing pages provided in their manual, which they still submitted along with the new tables.

Since this is the first experiment, I emphasized to them about the individual report assignments that will be due (for some of them) next meeting. Not all of the groups have submitted their diskettes where I could save a copy of the report format, and until today none of the other groups have given me their diskette for copying the file. I guess it’s up to them to copy the file from the other groups who have submitted diskettes.

On a strange interlude, the student with the highest GPA (honored during the Talent Night) has requested to be transferred from her original group during Friday to one of the Wednesday classes. I don’t know if it’s because of a conflict with her previous group members, but she didn’t like it that she specifically, not her group, was always the last to finish. I told her to ask David, and he agreed, putting her in the 2pm class, which only has 3 groups anyway. But now her previous group only has four members, and they are six members total in her new group.

I’ll find out later how her old group will react to her absence, unless she has already told them and the departure is more or less amicable. I’d consider them very understanding if that’s the case.