LAB EXERCISE 1

Physics Lab 1 Monday, August 2, 2010 Name __________________
Dr Dave Menke, Instructor, Brown Mackie College

I Title: Measurements

II Purpose: Practice in Measurements

III Equipment: any object that is appropriate* to measure, meter stick or metric ruler, scale

*Not too small or too large to measure in class with the equipment available: small book or other item is fine.

IV Procedure:
1. Pick an appropriate object to measure. Record.
2. Measure the length, width, and height of the object in centimeters. Record.
3. Calculate the surface area (approximately) of this 3-D object, in cm2. Record.
4. Calculate the volume of the object in cm3. Record.
5. Use the scale to measure the mass of the object in grams. Record.
6. Determine the density of the object (in g/cm3) by dividing the mass that you found in Step 5, with the volume that you found in Step 4. Record.

V Data
1. Object selected:_________________________
2. The length x width x height of object, in cm: _______ x _______ x ________
3. The surface area of the object: ___________ cm2.
4. Volume of the object: ___________cm3.
5. Mass of the object: ___________ grams
6. Density of the object: ____________ g/cm3 .

VI Results (Conclusions): In this section, explain how successful you were at achieving the Purpose. (Use back or extra sheets)

VII Error
Qualitative – sources of error
Personal – what things did you or your partner(s) do to screw things up, if anything at all?
Systematic – what was wrong with the equipment that caused the lab to go “bad”, or, what external factors (hurricane, earthquake, etc) contributed to difficulties in this lab?
Random – there are always random errors, unless you do this lab exercise 5 times and take an average
Quantitative – NA

VIII Questions (Hint: Use any source available, including Wikipedia.org)
What is a vernier caliper?
What is a micrometer caliper?