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

In yesterday’s mechanics lab classes, we had the activity on errors.

For the morning class, their quiz was just giving the symbols for mean, deviation etc. (one point each) and supplying the equations for percentage difference and percentage error (three points each).

Some of the students expressed surprise because, based on last week’s quiz questions, they had studied the list of materials. I told them that they should be prepared on any question about the theory, procedure, materials or data sheet.
David’s brother Daniel, after the quiz, asked how the quizzes were going to figure in their final grade. I said that all the quizzes account for ten percent of their grade.

Afterwards I told them to borrow the equipment so I could give the preliminary reminders on what to do for the activity.

I told them to cover the drain so that the metal ball (bearing) doesn’t fall. I already warned them of previous classes losing their balls and not being able to enroll for the next term until they paid for the “breakage” and got cleared by (my) science lab office.

I also told them how to effectively get the height of the ramp (measure from the top of the ramp to the tabletop first, then from the bottom of the ramp to the tabletop, and subtract).

I showed them how to make maximum use of the paper under the carbon paper since they would have thirty readings, which would make marks on the paper that would eventually clump and be undistinguishable (fold the paper first and use one of the four resulting sides for up to eight of the measurements). Then they had to measure those eight before letting the ball roll eight more times on the other side of the paper.

Lastly I had to show them how to list down the deviation on the data sheet (somehow the new version of the manual did not include the sample computation anymore).

For those who had to repeat their first activity, I wrote on the board how many decimal places each measuring instrument was accurate to (two for the ruler, three for the Vernier caliper and four for the micrometer caliper, all in centimeters).

In the afternoon class when I gave them the questions for the quiz, which was to compute for the mean etc. given only four sample measurements, they asked for some hints.

I gave in, but I said that it would be the last time I would do that. Next time they will be expected to answer the questions with no hints whatsoever.

In the morning class, there was one group that was not present when I gave the reminders. So they had to ask me, ask their classmates, ask the technician and rely on the manual, but not necessarily in that order. In the afternoon, there were two out of the three groups that were not following instructions despite being present for my reminders.

But I’ll have to continue my story tomorrow. The class is out of time for today.