Experimental Design B/C

lchs
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by lchs »

I had my state competition last weekend and the experiment had an interesting twist so I thought I'd mention it here. The materials we were given included a dynamometer (measures grip force), three different types of gloves, a stopwatch (even though we can bring in one), an angle measuring device (a protractor with an arm), and some other things I don't remember.

The unique aspect was a bonus that required teams to incorporate a second independent variable in the write up. We had a few different ideas but there was no way we could incorporate two numerical independent variables. One of them had to be categorical. Also, the second IV made data, graphs, and statistics really long..... :? Nonetheless, it was quite the challenge and kudos to the state proctor for coming up with the bonus.
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by henceagrin36 »

lchs wrote:I had my state competition last weekend and the experiment had an interesting twist so I thought I'd mention it here. The materials we were given included a dynamometer (measures grip force), three different types of gloves, a stopwatch (even though we can bring in one), an angle measuring device (a protractor with an arm), and some other things I don't remember.

The unique aspect was a bonus that required teams to incorporate a second independent variable in the write up. We had a few different ideas but there was no way we could incorporate two numerical independent variables. One of them had to be categorical. Also, the second IV made data, graphs, and statistics really long..... :? Nonetheless, it was quite the challenge and kudos to the state proctor for coming up with the bonus.
And a tape measure! I thought that bonus was really neat as well, but 27+ trials took forever. My procedures were like, "Repeat this step, now repeat the step before, and now repeat the step before again." The real struggle was naming the gloves though lol. What did you all do for your experiment?
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by jkang »

henceagrin36 wrote: What did you all do for your experiment?
Yes, I am very interested in how other teams approached this prompt :?
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by lchs »

jkang wrote:
henceagrin36 wrote: What did you all do for your experiment?
Yes, I am very interested in how other teams approached this prompt :?
Well, we used time for our first IV and measured force on the dynamometer at different time intervals. We were about to stick with one variable but I suggested we just do the experiment with each one of the gloves to add a second IV. Although it was a categorical IV, we used the data with respect to time for all the numerical stuff so it wasn't too bad. :D Oh and for labeling the gloves, we said latex gloves, orange gloves, and black gloves. I don't know if they were described in depth more elsewhere, but those were the labels I used in my data/graphs/analysis. And I completely agree with how tedious the numbers were..... I've never done such an intense Experimental Design :lol:

So what did y'all end up doing?
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by henceagrin36 »

Yeah that was pretty intense! Our first independent variable were the different types of gloves. We forgot the word latex for the first half of the event so we had to go back and change our label of "thin black rubber glove" to "black latex glove." :lol: The other ones became the black cotton work glove and the yellow/green rubber+cotton gardening glove. Our second IV was the distance the glove was stretched from the resting state (ok pulling a cotton glove 6 cm didn't really work in real life but we needed to move on).
I do the problem through qualitative observations, so 27 trials didn't bother me at all.
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Entomology - 2nd Place


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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by jkang »

lchs wrote: Well, we used time for our first IV and measured force on the dynamometer at different time intervals. We were about to stick with one variable but I suggested we just do the experiment with each one of the gloves to add a second IV. Although it was a categorical IV, we used the data with respect to time for all the numerical stuff so it wasn't too bad. :D Oh and for labeling the gloves, we said latex gloves, orange gloves, and black gloves. I don't know if they were described in depth more elsewhere, but those were the labels I used in my data/graphs/analysis. And I completely agree with how tedious the numbers were..... I've never done such an intense Experimental Design :lol:

So what did y'all end up doing?
Sounds pretty much like the exact same experiment we did. What the heck proctors
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by deoxyribonucleicacid »

So what is the hardest topic you've ever seen in Experimental Design (more specifically Divison B but Divison C helps)? My team struggles with Experimental Design.
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by Panda Weasley »

Hardest topic I have had was sample accuracy with a plateful of beads. I've already ranted about it several times though, so I won't say anything else right now. ;)
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by samlan16 »

deoxyribonucleicacid wrote:So what is the hardest topic you've ever seen in Experimental Design (more specifically Divison B but Divison C helps)? My team struggles with Experimental Design.
1. Division C actually helps- ExpD is the now pretty much the same event for both divisions except for significant figures.
2. Hmm... my coach once gave me a bottle of potassium iodide, a slice of bread, a cracker, and a plate for an experiment. The experiment was only difficult because it was hard to quantify.
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by deoxyribonucleicacid »

samlan16 wrote:
deoxyribonucleicacid wrote:So what is the hardest topic you've ever seen in Experimental Design (more specifically Divison B but Divison C helps)? My team struggles with Experimental Design.
1. Division C actually helps- ExpD is the now pretty much the same event for both divisions except for significant figures.
2. Hmm... my coach once gave me a bottle of potassium iodide, a slice of bread, a cracker, and a plate for an experiment. The experiment was only difficult because it was hard to quantify.
So how did you go about doing that experiment with the bread and potassium iodide?
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