Making waves

The Wave Project

Last week on Friday we did a wave project. That means we were testing on how waves react to solid objects and floating objects. The guiding questions are:

1.     When water is dropped from a pipette into a pan of water, how does the wave behave?

2.     What properties does a mechanical wave have?

3.     How do waves interact with each other and with solid objects in their path?

 

My answers to these questions

1.     First, the drop from the pipette makes a quick splash, then it creates small waves that begin to grow when they expand and disappear or continue when they hit objects. But they bounce off only when they hit something plastic.

2.      A mechanical wave is a wave that requires a medium through in which to travel.

3.     Depends, when 2 waves interact with each other, they make a splash and stop. When they hit a non still object, they carry it along. But when waves hit a still object, 2 things can happen: 1. The wave will pass the still object and go around it, 2. If the wave has enough power, it can knock the still object down and maybe carry it along.

My hypothesis is that waves can be stopped by strong objects but not moving ones.

 

Do you wish to try this too? Great! Here is the list of steps for this experiment:

1.     Water

2.     Modeling clay (2 bars)

3.     Ripple tank (plastic or metal)

4.     2 plastic droppers

5.     Paper towels

6.     Cork ( or small Styrofoam ball)

 

Safety: When doing this experiment, be sure to keep away from any electronics or move them so you or nobody gets hurt thank you.

Here are the directions:

1.     Fill the pan with water

2.     Fill the plastic droppers and then release drops 10cm high. You can do this in the middle, in corners, at the ends or anywhere.

3.     You can also try to do this with 2 droppers. You know what they say: Double the item, double the fun!

4.     After you do this, place a cork, 2 sticks of clay or a Styrofoam ball into the pan. Then fill the droppers with water and see how the waves react to the objects.

5.     Final step: gently place the paper towel on top of the water so it could float. Then fill the droppers with water and see if the towel sinks or floats.

 

These are my observations when I was working with my partner:

 

When I was dropping water into the pan, the drops made tiny waves and bounced off of the walls. But when I and my partner did this with 2 drops at the same time, the waves crushed into each other and turned direction. With the cork it was different. When I was dropping water, the waves hit the cork and disappeared but the cork moved a little. This happed every time when I dropped water somewhere else. When I used the towel it was fun. The towel was floating on the water and when I dropped water, the towel didn’t even sink! The best part was when I used the clay. The clay sticks made good defense barriers and blocked the small waves.

 

So in conclusion, waves can be stopped by still objects or when waves hit each other.

My hypothesis was correct and it truly is because barricades can stop giant or small waves.

 

And here are 2 pictures that you can follow too if you didn’t understand the rules. The second one is just how I was supposed to do this: