| Ramora
Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Kita's pocket
Posts: 5,228
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Aslan Archer
Slytherin First Year
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Rose Woods
Gryffindor Second Year
Ministry RPG Name:
Amrita Sandhu
Law Enforcement
Ministry RPG Name:
Laleh Kiani
 x9  x6
|  ½ of Lauralie | Koala | The being in Ern's pocket | Baby Smurf | Prouf member of The Flock
SPOILER!!: siriusblackliveson Quote:
Originally Posted by siriusblackliveson  Patrick had listened to everyones answers about science and what things people do for science. Most of the answers were ones similar to what he had come up with. He had written them all down and was fairly certain that tonight would be less adventure more technique. While he wasn't thrilled he was going to have to deal with it.
Gathering the materials from his table he began to make a pendulum the same way that their professor had shown them. He was not going to make a misstep this was one of his most favorite classes. He seriously missed His former head of house, but he was fairly certain he could get over that and enjoy the new professors lessons.
He released the pendulum and watched it take the first swing around it was a little wobbly, but he counted each circle. one....two...three This was the never ending part counting a very boring circle motion. six...seven... Oh Merlin. He had forgotten to time how long it was taking. Holding the pendulum steady again he released it and started to time how many full circle trips the pendulum took. Simran had made it to the back of the classroom before people had finished setting up -- most seemed to be able to get through unassisted, including Mr Doley, despite his evident boredom with the lesson.
Truly, she felt a little bad for making such a good student out of his mind, but she sent him a thumbs up somewhere in between his stopwatch readings. SPOILER!!: Nordic Witch Quote:
Originally Posted by Nordic Witch What had scientists to do with astronomy? With that query circling around in her head Ellie took diligent notes on the scientific method and everything else Professor Sandu was saying. She had gotten uplifted by the praise she had gotten earlier for her answer.
Next moment their professor instructed them on how to create a simple pendulum from the materials they all had on their desks. She wrote down the instructions carefully, she didn't want to miss a step. A missed step even if this wasn't potions could lead to a problem later.
"Righto let's do this!" Ellie mumbled to herself as she concentrated hard on attaching the clamp to the retort stand with the screws. Then she took a breath before she tied the string to the pendulum bob watching it wobble in the air causing her to get a little anxious. A quick look around soothed her worries though. It looked the same for everyone else. Next she tied the pendulum bob to the pivot like Professor Sandhu had said and she was done.
Ellie relaxed for a moment, before she did the test to see if she had done it right. Displacing slightly and releasing she watched it complete one full oscillation. It made a small smile purse her lips. Raising her hand she queried. "Professor Sandu why is it called an oscillation and not say a pendulum swing or something?"
She kept working timing the 10 oscillations and then she proceeded to make adjustments to the pendulum with the metre rule and extra string, tabling all her results on a piece of parchment. When she was finished Ellie took the time to observe everyone elses work. There was something rather calming about pendulums and their swinging, and Simran made a mental note to get herself a Newton's cradle for her office just so she could have something else to procrastinate grading papers with.
Thank goodness for Miss Smethwyck, though, for snapping her out of her pendulum-induced hypnosis before she got too carried away. Why an oscillation? Oh, well. She knew the answer for this, at least. "Many things swing. For example, if I were to slide your pendulum off the clamp and swing it at someone's head, that would be a pendulum swing."
"An oscillation, however, is a word for a specific type of swing,"she said, her right index finger now following the movement of a nearby pendulum. "It describes a periodic motion, where the restoring force acts in the opposite direction to the displacement of whatever it is you're measuring. We call it simple harmonic motion."
And then drawing nearer, she lowered her voice slightly. "If you want extra reading on the subject, feel free to stick around after class and I'll get you something." SPOILER!!: TakemetotheBurrow Quote:
Originally Posted by TakemetotheBurrow Alright, time to use her hands. Vita glanced between her own materials and the professor's, noting the way she handled them, which pieces belonged where. The measurements weren't going to be very useful if the pendulum didn't even work...
She busied herself with the clamp first, which was fastened well enough to the stand. It wasn't coming loose anytime soon and she was satisfied with that. Next she secured the bob thingy to the string. Her knots were good, nimble fingers working to make sure they would keep the bob attached. Once the string was attached to the clamp, she was good to go. The seventh year didn't dare look around to check her work, wanting to trust that she'd followed the instructions to the letter. If she couldn't manage it on her own now, how would she do it during NEWTs? Her work was on her and her alone.
Bringing the string back, she released it and watched as the pendulum set to work, noting the time as she watched it complete each oscillation. She recorded her result when she was finished, taking note of the length of the string. Then she allowed herself to mess with the length some, adjusting the bob and trying the experiment again. She was curious to see how the length would impact the amount of time each oscillation would take.
Oh, quite a nicely set up apparatus was going on here. The Slytherin prefects seemed to be on a roll today. "Excellent setup, Miss Mallari." SPOILER!!: hermionesclone Quote:
Originally Posted by hermionesclone No unnecessary risks? Lucas understood COMPLETELY. He didn't need to be told twice to not do something that was risky or might cause him harm. That wasn't very Lucas, in his opinion.
The thoughtful expression found its way back on his face when Sandhu started talking about the Scientific Method and the activity they were going to take part in. He couldn't help but start to wonder what exactly they were going to do later on with the idea of a hypothesis - and what he was going to do if they were going to have to come up with their own. But, apparently, this wasn't the time.
Instead, he concentrated hard on what Sandhu was doing, trying to keep up with her demonstration until it was his turn to get started. What was first? The clamp? He started trying to fasten it to the retort stand, making sure it was fixed properly in place. And how was this done? With a lot of twisting and turning and constant checks on his part just to make sure.
Next: the pendulum. He took the string and tied it to the pendulum bob, making sure to keep it at a metre in length and adding in a few extra knots there. Just in case. And now, he needed to do the same thing with the other end and the clamp: extra knots and all. It was a simple process but he couldn't help but feel as though it was taking him a lot longer than it should. Why? He didn't know.
Now, came for the fun part. Lucas let the pendulum get relatively still - and waited for his second hand to reach the 12 mark - before displacing it and releasing it. He tried to block out everything else and just make a note of the time that it was taking for these oscillations to occur. It was almost as if he was in his own world, with no one else in the room, just him and this stand in front of him.
When the ten oscillations were done, he made a note of the time - and the length of the string! - on a simple results table. A very simple results table but it will be added to later. He then set to work on shortening the string and taking the results from that as well. He..... had a funny feeling he knew what the general theme of the answers would be like but that wasn't stopping him from working with the pendulum. But on the subject of well-set-up apparatus, this one was rather... not. Not that it was terribly set up, but there were so many knots that Simran almost had a headache trying to imagine disassembling it.
"Master Dakest, you do know that more knots increase friction, which can affect your results, yes?" Summoning a spare pendulum bob, she picked up the spool of string and cut a new length, something she approximated to a half metre even though it was about 58cm in reality.
"A double knot on the pendulum will do, if you tie it tight, it won't fall off." We following? "And a loop on the top is the most efficient considering you can just sliiiiiide it onto the clamp."
Like so.
Merry Christmas, Lucas Dakest, Professor Sandhu just set up your apparatus for you. SPOILER!!: Hey Ju Quote:
Originally Posted by Hey Ju At professor Sandhu's response to her 'answer', Anna stifled a chuckle and bit her lip.
Nope. This wasn't going to be History of Magic all over again. Anna wasn't going to give a cheeky answer. They weren't worth getting a detention for. She was going to just smile and sit quietly as the lesson continued. She could do it. She had self-control. She was a good stu-
"Good for them." Welp. Never mind.
Anna gave the woman a slightly defiant nonchalant smile as she sat back in her chair and... didn't really bother to take notes or anything because eh. All those things were probably in a book somewhere anyway.
When the older witch resumed talking and explaining things, Anna did try to listen - honestly! - but it was all so... not interesting. Anna had a hard time not shaking her head and looking bored. She didn't want to be rude, but WOW, this was just not her thing at all.
It was a good thing she was sitting next to her nerd of a friend, Patrick. She'd just do whatever he was doing with the stuff on the desk. Excellent plan!
And so copy off him she did. Oh. It wasn't that difficult, actually. Maybe she SHOULD try and actually listen to the professor once in a while.
The Gryffindor hung the thingamajig and got it all set up. Releasing the pendulum, she watched it go from side to side to side to side. It was quite mesmerising. It was even nearly entertaining for the first few seconds, but she soon lost interest again.
Wait, they were supposed to be counting? Argh, Merlin. She'd have to do it again. Ugh. Duuuuuull. She was about to just adjust whatever Patrick's notes about his pendulum time were when... apparently he hadn't been counting either. Anna snorted. "Focus, kid!" She nudged his side with her elbow. "Come on, you're a prefect." Cue cheeky look. At the Gryffindor prefect's tone, something seemed to simmer in her veins. Was it her blood? How quickly it boiled these days without Amrita to nag at and Jasmine to coo over.
"And that will be 3 points from you for your lack thereof, Miss Merriweather," she said frostily. "And your blatant lack of respect."
She drew nearer, voice still low, but the patented disappointed brown parent look in her eye. "I can put up with and occasionally enjoy your sad attempts at wit in lessons with your peers, dear, but when the younger students are around, I expect you to be an example. If that seems too much to ask of you, I will be more than happy to bring it up with your head of house. Do I make myself clear?"
Hm? SPOILER!!: Felixr Quote:
Originally Posted by Felixir As expected, soon there came all the words that Kaiser couldn't hope to get his head around. He was fully of the belief that, if he were presented with said words written down and allowed to get through them at his own pace, he would manage much better, but as it was they came at him in something of a verbal onslaught.
Unsurprisingly, Kaiser ended up just sort of glazing over as Professor Sandhu spoke to them, vaguely taking note of things here and there - mentally if not literally - when they got through to him. It didn't take long before they were all told to get working, at which point Kaiser sat up and looked around at his classmates, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Right...
Setting up the equipment wasn't too difficult, Kaiser had watched the professor do exactly that, and copying her was relatively easy. What was less easy was the part that came after that. Given that he had not exactly been paying attention, he was not entirely sure what instructions they had been given, only that they were making a pendulum swing and noting down... something. And that part he had only deduced by watching his classmates - what did 'tabulate' even mean?
Because it was better to at least appear busy than it was to dither about looking lost, Kaiser turned his attention to the pendulum and set it off swinging. He wasn't too sure exactly what he was supposed to be writing down, so that part never happened, but he did watch the pendulum swinging. Left, right, left, right, left, right...
Yes, it was certainly working. Oh, Kaiser, dear, what ever were you doing? Simran made her way over to his desk and picked up his stopwatch, and then held it out to him. "Time ten oscillations, dear, and then adjust the length of the string."
"And don't forget to record your results!" Maybe someday all her students would listen when she gave instructions. SPOILER!!: Lislchen Quote:
Originally Posted by Lislchen Okay, so she had expected something a bit more, well, interesting for the practical part of this lesson.
Anahera suppressed a sigh (but barely) and started setting up the pendulum. Had Professor Sandhu really thought this through? Having them stare at a pendulum in the middle of the night? Honestly, she wouldn't blame anyone who nodded off while counting their oscillations. Some of her classmates certainly looked like they were about to fall asleep.
Maybe she shouldn't have continued to attend this class after all.
One...two...three............................... Well, truthfully, Professor Sandhu had planned a whole host of introductions to the night sky, but the weather had decided to one-up her and she wasn't really in the position to tell the weather to kindly buzz off.
At least Anahera seemed to be doing well, even if she looked liable to fall asleep in the next few minutes. SPOILER!!: Jessiqua Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessiqua Scientific methods. Nod. Hypothesis, variables... and Hanna could see how that would translate to the thing they were going to be doing. Pendulums. And with the items on their tables, they got to making them. Hanna watched carefully as Professor Sandhu put the Pendulum together, and then she got to work.
The retort stand, on the floor, Hanna pulled closer, and attached the clamp to it with the screws, leaving the string away. She looked back up once attaching the clamp and got to the pendulum by grabbing the string and the bob, and putting the two together. This was tied to the clamp, and tested it out. It moved without breaking.
Her parchment out, and her quill inked up, Hanna let the pendulum swing, counting ten oscillations and timing it with the timer. And with Miss Newton, as always, precise to a flaw. Simran nodded in approval at the girl's setup before moving back towards the front. Clapping her hands twice to get their attention, because her throat was dry and she didn't quite want to scratch it further before she had some tea, she waited until eyes moved from pendulums to her person. Did she have the room yet? Wonderful.
"Now you've all become acquainted with the simple pendulum and learned the relationship between the manipulated variable -- the length of the string -- and the time taken for the pendulum to oscillate. Your conclusion would be that the shorter the string, the faster the oscillation -- or the higher the frequency."
The conclusion wrote itself out on the board, and the associated equation as well. "This experiment is not only important to illustrate the effects of simple harmonic motion, but is also the simplest way to derive the value of gravitational acceleration." SURPRISE! Bet they didn't think pendulums had anything to do with astronomy at all.
"Either way, we won't be deriving that right now," she said, looking out over the room. "As you were performing the experiment, I'm sure it was difficult to keep your results as accurate as possible, especially with so many moving parts."
"Now, can you all tell me what could have possibly gone wrong in this experiment? Or in any experiment, for that matter?"
OOC: Thanks for participating in the mini-activity, guys! Now we're on to Question 2. You'll have about 24 hours from the time of this post before we move on!
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