Experimental Design and Data Table Chart Help!

[Sai018]

I am in 9th Grade, someone please help me . I have looked everywhere but I couldn't find an answers. My topic is I am counting stars with a software I created. And i need the control, in this experiment. What is my data, I need to have data in a table and make it into a bar graph because I am comparing two things. I am comparing for which is better, a human counting stars or a computer counting stars. My dependent variable is the number of stars that are found. But what is my independent variable and the data for this experiment?

I think this project is catagorized as an engineering experiment. Please help me! This project deadline is coming up.

[HowardE]

This isn't a conventional experiment in the sense that you have experimental controls. From how you describe it, you're trying to see if a computer counting stars is better than a human? If the human counting them is the usual way, one way to look at this is that the human count is the control. The independent variable is the one you decide how to change - you're changing the counting method from human to computer. The dependent variable is the result of the experiment. Does that help?

A real control would be the *actual* number of stars visible from your location. If you knew that from a database of some kind, that would be a a better control and then both the human count and computer count would be experimental data.

[Sai018]

Thank you so much HowardE . Really, you gave me confidence to continue this project. I have one more question. What would be my data and how would I put it in a data table? Should I get a human to count the stars, so I can compare? I will be only doing 1 trial, because no matter how many times you run the program the computer is going to give you the same answer. Please visit the url below. Does that table seem right? What should I do, now I am confused with the data part. Thank you again!


http://i.imgur.com/LTNHlab.png?1

[HowardE]

Your data is what you collect from the experiment. In this case, what would that be? It seems like the number of stars counted by a human and the number counted by a computer. It makes sense that the same program would always count the same number, but what about humans? Would two people each count the same number? If you counted them and then I did, would we have the same results?

Your table looks fine, but consider whether there should be multiple human trials since humans aren't as repeatable as computers.

Howard