Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I help my son with the seismograph project, I have the information. How can I read this information? My son needs to create a graph.

Hi Lissy,
Welcome to Science Buddies. Are you working on this project?
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... p017.shtml

I don't quite understand your question. What information do you have? The more detail you can provide, the more we will be able to help!

Chris

Hi Chris, we build the seismograph and we tested, we have the paper roll with the mark that the pencil did on the paper roll when the machine (seismograph) was receiving the movement of the car. My question is how can I do a graph with the informaiton that I have in the paper roll?

Hi Lissy,

I don't know what the requirements are for the graph you are meant to produce, but I would think that you could do a great job with the roll of paper itself!

Basically, this would require marking off on the roll when there are zero vibrations (your baseline) and marking the effects of a specific disturbance that you create, from start to finish. The paper roll will chart (or "graph") what the machine detects.

Your experimental stage could consist of dropping objects (preferably non-breakable!) of successively-increasing mass. You could then check your chart and see if there is a correlation between the larger the peak height and the heavier the weight. Does that make sense?

If the requirements specifically state for a *graph*, one option might be to try plotting the relative peak height against the weight dropped.

These are just a couple of thoughts, so please be sure to post back if you have any more questions.

Hope this helps and good luck!
Geoff.