Results, Discussion, and Conclusion

The site chosen was the grassy open area located behind Oble. This was chosen as most of the
sites that were originally considered had either been taken or were made undesirable due to water
puddles from a previous rain shower. The site proved to be a decent site to perform the task as it was a
wide open area that allowed for versatility in the pentagon that we were to form. The main drawback of
the site however is the fact that due to previous rain showers, some parts of the site became muddy and
fairly difficult to traverse. As such, this may have caused some issues regarding pacing as our pacer had
to adjust his walking in order to have a firm grip on the ground. The task at hand proved fairly easy to
perform because there were no other groups we had to share the area with and as such, confusion with
others was avoided. This being said, there were also problems encountered due to the location. First,
children in the area who were playing games dislodged our marker for our second point (T2) and this
had to be located again. Secondly, the open area proved to be both a boon and a bane: there were no
issues regarding solid objects that could be a hindrance in checking the angles between our points but
this proved problematic as the wind was free to blow in the area. As such, our second measuring with
the tape proved to be taxing as we had to use more force to keep the tape taut. We had to fight both the
tape's weight and the wind's force. The third and last major problem that we encountered in the area
was the soil. While some points were located in decently compacted soil, some others such as T2 and
T3 were located in muddy areas. Going to these points was also difficult as the terrain was not
agreeable. This may have also caused errors with regards to pacing.
Our main sources of error would likely be the pacing adjustment caused by terrain and the tape
corrections due to sag and wind. Notably, the open area allowed us to shape our pentagon as we saw fit
and this caused us to obtain larger-than-necessary measurements, which in turn caused bigger errors on
the measuring tape due to sag and wind. The kids who dislodged our T2 marker may have also caused
an error. However, we managed to locate the hole where our marker was placed by referring to our
notes in our field notebook. As such, the error from this event should be minimal.
Recommendations for future students who would perform a similar task would be to choose
areas that have solid ground (concrete or similar materials) and areas enclosed by walls or similar
structures in order to prevent the wind from being an issue. Choosing an indoor location would also be
good as this allows the students to place the tape on the ground (with permission from the instructor)
and not deal with the sag of the tape as well.