Making Waves Lab Report

Guiding Question: How do two waves interact traveling from different sides with a floating object in the middle of the tray, And which material travels the fastest through a wave.

Hypothesis: I think the cork travels the fastest through a wave.

Materials

• Tray
• Styrofoam Ball
• Cork
• Water
• Pencil
• Marker
• Timer

Procedure

1. Fill the tray about 10 centimeters with water
2. Put each object inside at different times And make a wave from each side with a marker.
3. Record your observations
4. Put each object inside on one side and time it how much it takes for the object to the other side
5. Record the speeds

Observations

Styrofoam Ball - The ball stayed in the middle pretty much of the time, The waves slid over each other on each side. Over a period of time the styrofoam ball moved to the side.
Cork - The cork stayed in the middle then it moved to the side and went left and stayed, The waves slid over each other in the middle the formed arches in the middle, but the cork was unaffected.
Pencil - The pencil was in the middle but the slid out onto a side then it stayed there, the waves slid over each other in arches.

• The surface area effects the pencil when the markers spread out and hits the surface the pencil travels further and faster, when you tap it normally the waves do not reach the pencil.

Record

	Trial 1	Trial 2	Trial 3
Styrofoam ball	16.53 seconds	30.41 seconds	10.53 seconds
Cork	13.97 seconds	29.88 seconds	7.35 seconds
Pencil	1 minute 21.04 sec	16.60 seconds	2 minutes 20.41 seconds

Conclusion:
After I finished the tests I noticed a couple things, first the waves continued sliding over each other even though there was a floating object in the water the waves just ignored the object or pushed out to the side, but most of the time the object spent in the middle. The cork was the fastest from the three objects, I think it was the fastest because it was compressed, and it was small. While the pencil was long and in order for it to move the clay was spouse to hit it vertically.

Further Inquiry
I could have changed the experiment by using other liquids or other floating objects. It would take much more force to move an object in oil or honey because the medium is thick and it’s much harder to make waves the thicker the object.