Lab

Report Analysis 1
The following is a hypothetical lab you are doing. Your goal is to analyze the data youve collected and
to write a lab report on it. The beginning portion of the lab report has already been done for you
(normally you will write your own objective, materials, procedure, and data table). When you write a lab
report it will include a title page and the first item on the second page will be Objective.
Objective: Determine the average velocity of a truck driving down Perrineville Rd.
Introduction: This experiment will use the relationship between velocity, displacement, and time to find
the velocity of the truck. The relationship is:

_____________

The slope of a _____________________________ graph will be equal to the velocity.

Materials: stopwatch, meter tape, vehicle, telephone poles
Procedure: (Notice that all the materials used are mentioned in the procedure. This should always happen.)
1. Measure the distance between 2 telephone poles on Perrineville Rd. using the meter tape.
(Assume it is the same distance between all telephone poles.)
2. Choose a vehicle driving down Perrineville Rd. to observe.
3. Measure the time it takes for the vehicle to move from one pole to the next using the
stopwatch.
4. Using the lap button on the stopwatch repeat step 3 for the same vehicle for 4 more sets of
poles for a total of 5 measurements.
(Typically you would include a diagram of your setup here.)
Data:

position (m)
0
20
40
60
80

Analysis:
Graph:

time (s)
0
2.2
4.5
8.2
9.5

Chart Title

25

20

15

Distance (Miles)
10

0
0

Calculations:



(If trendline is linear) Equation of the line:


(Note: Lets pretend that while you were doing this experiment, your teacher used a radar gun
to measure the actual speed of the vehicle. This speed was measured as 8.0 m/s.)

% error = experimental value accepted value

accepted value


Discussion: Typically this section is completed in paragraph form. Because this is not actually a
formal lab report you may answer each question separately.
1. Are position and time directly or inversely related? How do you know?


2. What was the purpose of making the graph? (What physical quantity does the slope
represent?)


3. What did you find the velocity to be?

Conclusion: This should be in paragraph form. Always restate the objective and address it. Briefly
describe how you performed the experiment. State your results (In other words, state the value you got,
what the value should have been, and the percent error). Do not restate your data. If your results are off
from the expected results at all then you must provide possible sources of error. Provide at least 2 sources
of error. (Sources of error do not include rounding error, calculated wrong, measured wrong, or
other things that are mistakes on your part. They are things that cannot be helped due to the equipment
you used or the procedure itself.)