designing a lab for physics

[volpesmagnus]

Hi all, think this is the first time posting on this part of the forums. but im in need of assistance from you guys. my physics class project is to design our own individual labs to test a hypothesis of our choosing (it doesnt have to be physics related, just science in general) and i am completely stumped. all the ideas i have come up with were about electromagnetism, but those all required wire and magnets which my parents wont let me buy (downside to working in family business, they control all my money).

My older brother came back from college over break and said he would help me with it, but he never had the time.

So i have a week left before its due, and i was hoping someone here would be able to give me a creative idea to help me with this project.

thanks in advance all

[Viking Prince]

I am assuming high school. You might want to start checking at:

http://www.stanthony.k12.mn.us/hssci...pful-lab.shtml

Lots of good ideas and it may also trigger a better one for you. It would be easier if you told us the type of interests that you have. I know you mentioned electomagnitism -- any others?

Good luck. I will ask around and if something leaps out, I will post it for you.

[Sphere]

Optics are fun. You could design an experiment to determine the index of refraction of an unknown material(s). A lazer pointer and a good protractor would be all you need.

[Morkonan]

Well, do you have to just design a lab or actually construct one?

If you're designing a lab, go ahead and throw in some superconductors, maybe lease the Tokamak and attach the plans for the LHC and plan on building several. You won't need them but, hey.. it's free and you may as well add them in for something. Pad the Grant budget! That's the key to successful research!!

BUT, if you have to build it, then it should be fairly simple. For instance, let's say you want to map out magnetic field lines. You really don't have to have much accuracy for your purposes and let's say you just want to see a general shape good enough to demonstrate what they are and what they look like. Well, building a lab for that is pretty easy.

You need a table, some sort of thin rigid material or maybe some semi-rigid material like stiff paper. You'd need a magnet and then some sort of half-decent reactive material like iron fillings. What else do you need? A camera would probably be a good idea so you can show the rest of the world your results. A notepad, pen or pencil would be handy along with the computer you're using right now and a lightbulb so you can see what you're doing. Door (to keep out spies), walls (keeps the wind out), ceiling (to keep out the rain) and a floor to keep you from falling to the center of the Earth rounds out your construction needs.

There you go - Instant research lab.

In other words, what you need is the minimum equipment and resources necessary to perform your experiment and record and analyze the results. You don't have to build an entire laboratory, just something that suits your purposes. It's very probable you have everything you need already with the exception of some very specific items relating to whatever it is you wish to experiment with.

The key that you probably want to concentrate a bit on is that you successfully manage to isolate your lab from contamination from outside sources. You don't want to put it in the livingroom but, your bedroom could be suitable unless you have a lot of traffic there as well. (If so, congratulations.) You also want to be sure that it is sufficiently isolated to account for any environmental effects. Obviously, you wouldn't want to put everything on top of a big electromagnet like a motor. That may skew your results. You also want to be sure you're not contaminating anything that people don't want contaminated. Luckily, that won't be much of a problem but if you were working with very powerful magnets, you'd definitely want to be sure the area was shielded and your parents brand new 50 inch High Def Television or someone's pacemaker wasn't sitting on the unshielded wall right beside your high-power magnetic experiment. That may be a "Bad Thing."

In list form:

1) Economy and efficiency
2) Experimental and Environmental Isolation

Good luck!