For our generator experiment, we used a hand shaken generator. This generator was simply a tube lined with coils in which a mobile magnet was shaken inside to produce a current with the coils. For five separate trials, we took the generator and shook it for 30 seconds, however each trial we increased or decreased the number of shakes we had in that 30 second span and had Labview track the voltage created, per second, by the shaking. Once we had our data, we summed the voltage created per second and then plotted that data onto a scatterplot. Here are our results:

Shakes — Voltage

22 — 16.00569

41 — 133.4468

71 — 61.2941

90 — 96.83239

154 — 239.8341

Other than the odd outlier at 41 shakes, we had a fairly linear trend to our voltage in relation to the number of shakes we exerted.

In our Lego robot experiment we learned how to assemble and use our Lego robots through the Labview program on our computers. In this program, we could control the power and time setting that was being exerted into the wheels of the Lego robot. Since we could control that, we were testing different power levels to produce different speeds on our Lego cars for different amounts of time, in order to measure the distance the car traveled.

For each time and power setting we used, we calculated our percent of error. As we tested each trial our percentage of error generally decreased because our measurements became more precise and allowed our calculations come out to be closer to the distance measured by the computer program itself.

For each trial we measured the circumference of the car wheel in order to estimate the distance it would travel in a specified amount of time given a certain power. Using the circumference, velocity, and distance we were then able to calculate our percentage of error.

After clearing up some confusion we were able to get underway in our experiment, so we were only able to get two trials in only one setting of power and time. Here are our results:

Setting 1: Power=75, Time=1Sec

Trial 1: 1.5611 Wheel turns (Labview), 0.279m (Labview), 0.279m/s (Labview), 1.418 Wheel turns (measured), 0.254m (measured), 0.254m/s (measured), 13.3% error.

Trial 2: 1.5944 Wheel turns (Labview), 0.285m (Labview), 0.285m/s (Labview), 1.561 Wheel turns (measured), 0.279m (measured), 0.279m/s (measured), 2.1% error.