desinging a seismograpgh lab

Can you design and build a seismograph that can record the movements of simulated earthquakes?

Hypothesis:

We should be able to build a seismograph that works, but my hypothesis is that it’s going to be difficult to build one that works for every kind of earthquake, whether it’s tiny, moderate, or huge.

Materials:

- Chair

- Two wooden boards

- nails

- Two wires

- Two strings

- Weights

- Tape

- Book

- Paper

- Pencil case

- A pen

Procedure:

1. First, nail the two boards together to create a 90 degree angle.
2. Next, hang a string from the edge of the boards and attach a pen to it.
3. Add two weights to the pen so that it doesn’t dangle all over the place.
4. Put that whole contraption on top of a chair to keep the boards in place. To make it even more stable, rest it on top of the pencil case.
5. Put the strings and wires around the legs of the chair and attach them to the pen so that it is kept firmly in one spot.

7.Put a clean sheet of paper on a book under the pen so that the tip of the pen is just resting on the paper. The book represents any seismic activity, so in order to make a test, shake the book but move it in a certain direction at the same time. On the paper, there should be a long squiggly line, which is the seismogram.

Data Analysis
Although I wasn't there for the actual testing, I got projects summery from my partners. According to them, they had to make a few slight changes in the design, like adding a weight. They also told me that for a while they were not shaking the right part of the seismograph. Apparently they were shaking the book under the seismograph rather then the chair. This was causing the outcome of the experiment to vary. Once they realized there mistake though, they tried again and got much better results.

Conclusion
I'm really upset that I missed this lab because it seems like it was really interesting. They were able to create and earthquake and literally see how seismographs worked. From what I can tell, they mIade some interesting conclusions. They can conclude that the structure of a seismograph can determine the end result of your tests. My partners learned this and were able to correct their mistake. Also, the right part of the seismograph has to be shaking in order to get correct results. My partners also were able to fix this and got quite accurate results.

Further Inquiry
If I were to do the lab, I think I would have made a few short changes. According to Maria, they had to keep switching out the paper to record the shaking. Next time, we could probably use paper wrapped around a toilet paper roll so that we didn't have to keep switching and we could get more accurate results. I also heard that the wooden structure didn't really do anything but keep the chair in place, so next time we could make it out of something different or easier to work with. Other then that there was not much else they told me. It seems like it was a really interesting lab and I'm sorry I missed it.