This is an example report for a mini investigation.

It is a bit short
for a real investigation but not that short (5 pages). A full
investigation would have more background theory, more data and
a more detailed evaluation.
Introduction
A bow made out of a rectangle cut from an ice cream carton and a piece of string was used to
shoot an arrow which was made from a drinking straw with a blob of plasticine on the end. The
bow was placed on a lab jack so that the height could be adjusted.

Research Question
What is the relationship between the height of projection and the horizontal displacement of the
arrow?

Independent variable: Height of the stand (h)

Dependent variable: Horizontal displacement (S)
Controlled variables:

 Position of bow and arrow on the stand.

 Angle of projection (horizontal).
 The distance that the bow is pulled back before shooting.
 Length, width, mass of arrow and bow.

Theory
Assuming that the air resistance has minimal effect the horizontal velocity of the arrow is constant
so the distance travelled in the time to fall, t will be given by
S = vt
When the arrow is shot elastic PE of the bow will be transformed to KE of the arrow assuming the
bow obeys Hooke’s law like a spring we can say that:
1/2 kx2 = ½ mv2
So if the “pull back” distance is constant v will be constant.
S therefore only depends on the time of flight.
Assuming constant acceleration we can use the suvat equation:
s = ut + ½ at2 applied to the vertical motion
h = ½ gt2 so
Substituting this into the equation for S gives

Hypothesis
From the theory it can be deduced that the range is proportional to the square route of the height.

Method
As described in the introduction, the height of launch was adjusted using a lab jack. After
experimenting with different ways of attaching the bow it was decided to simply use the top of the
jack to rest my hand while shooting the arrow.

Measurement of height:
In measuring the height of the jack, a ruler was used which has an uncertainty of ±0.05cm. I first
determined the height I wanted, and then adjusted the jack based on that height. The actual
launch height was the centre of the bow which was measured to be 3cm above the jack. This was
added to the height during processing
Measurement of horizontal displacement:
After the arrow landed on the table, its horizontal displacement was measured using a ruler with
an uncertainty of ±0.05cm, from the edge of the stand to where the arrow landed. The arrow
always landed with the plasticine end first, it sometimes bounced but I carefully watched the
landing area and marked the point where the arrow first touched the ground.

Controlling the controlled variables

 I used the same bow and arrow throughout the whole experiment
 I placed the bow in the same position by putting it at the front edge of the stand, so even if I
repeated the experiment, it had to be at the edge
 To ensure constant pull back I marked the arrow and always pulled back to that point
(actually it was my assistant doing this I was measuring the landing point).
 Constant horizontal launch was achieved by eye, any flights that clearly went above the
horizontal were ignored.

Range of independent variable

The maximum height of the stand was taken to be 20cm since it was about the actual maximum
height of the stand. The minimum height was 10cm. Different heights at 10cm, 13cm, 15cm,
18cm and 20cm were therefore taken. I repeated each height 7 times.

Raw data
Since the ruler used to measure the height and horizontal displacement measures to 0.1cm, the
uncertainty is ±0.05cm. Both values are therefore written in two decimal places.

Processing data
The first step in processing was to take the average values and adjust the height to take into
account the 3 cm to the centre of the bow. From the spread of data I can see that the uncertainty
in range is much bigger than the uncertainty in the ruler so I estimated the uncertainty from (max-
min)/2.

According to the theory so we can deduce that a graph of s vs √h should be a straight line with
gradient =v x √(2/g). To achieve this √h was found. Note I have decided to quote S to 1dp
otherwise the last two values will be the same.

Graph of S vs √h
The gradient of the line =21.17 cm1/2 with an uncertainty (from the steepest and least steep lines)
of ± 10 cm1/2.

Conclusion
The gradient of the line should be v x √(2/g) so the velocity = gradient/√(2/g)
We can calculate this to see if it is reasonable.
Substituting into this equation gives v = 5 ms-1 which is rather too fast I think. However we would
need to measure this to be sure.
Within the uncertainties of the measurements we can conclude that there is a positive relationship
between the range and height but our data is not precise enough to say that range is proportional
to the square root of the height. We also do not have enough data to try any sort of curve fitting.
The intercept on the y axis should be zero but in fact is has a negative value. This is not
significant given the uncertainties.

Evaluation
The theory made certain assumptions about constant acceleration and lack of air resistance, the
experiment neither supported nor contradicted these assumptions. The main problem was that
the method wasn't very repeatable, the spread of data shows that I wasn't able to shoot the arrow
in exactly the same way each time. There is some evidence that I got better with practice but not
good enough.
The main improvement would be to make some sort of stable arrangement to hold the bow. I tried
to do this with clamps but it restricted the movement of the bow.
If a real bow was used it would be easier to control and the range of values used could be much
larger than possible with the small model.