Splatter Lab

The purpose of this lab is to discover the effects of raindrops on land mass. The question to be answered is how does the height of the dropper effect the size of the splatter? In this lab, drops of colored water will fall from different heights and make a splatter. The splatter will be then measured and the diameter recorded. She believes that the height will affect the size of the splatter to some degree. The equipment used in this experiment are base, pole, ring, safety goggles, graph paper, 2 rulers, a dropper, beaker, dye water, 2 trays and paper towels. 

The steps for this lab are as follows. First, put a drop of dye in some water. Put the dropper through one of the holes on the ruler and place it on the ring flat. Then, place a ruler and measure from an upside down tray to the end of the dropper. Adjust so that the distance is 5 cm. Then drop a drop of the colored water onto graph paper. Quickly draw to lines to measure the size of the drop. Measure the diameter with a ruler and record. Repeat with 10cm, 15cm, 20cm, 25cm.

Data Chart:

Test	1	2	3	Av.
5cm	10	10	10	10
10cm	15	14	14	14.3
15cm	16	16	16	16
20cm	16	20	14	16.6
25cm	16	16	16	16

Some potential sources of error in the experiment are the hardness of the squeeze, the different people squeezing it. Next time, I am going to create a graph table before I start working on the experiment. My hypothesis was correct. The size of the splatter was affected by the height of the ring and dropper. What surprised me was that at 20 cm, it varied a great deal. I think we messed up on that one. J I have a few questions from the research I did.. How does it affect the ground when they fall from a higher altitude? Why don’t raindrops fall from the sky in a big bucket like fall? Why do they fall in little drops?

* this is also posted under science. :-)