Writing Up Your Project

A set of videos to help you write up your advanced higher project report.

How to record your relationships!

This is not a discussion about your friendships but how the data can be described.

The best terminology to use for graphs that have

That avoids issues around whether something is directly proportional or proportional.

Directly proportional only applies when the graph is a straight line through the origin (or close to the origin within the uncertainty in the y-intercept). It is best to avoid ‘proportional’ altogether.

A curve, such as that produced when plotting irradiance against distance, can never be described as showing an ‘inversely proportional’ relationship, since it does not show the actual relationship (it could potentially be any number of different relationships).

Inverse proportionality can only be claimed when the correct graph of, for example, irradiance against 1/d2 is drawn, and it produces a straight line through the origin.

The type of graph produced for an internal resistance experiment is covered by the term ‘linear relationship’, as it follows the equation y=mx+c format.

Setting up a Word Document

In this section I’ll add information about how to write up your AH Project. Here is the first installment. Nothing great, but just to set up your document so that you gain the Structure mark

https://www.youtube.com/embed/aEXKJ66v5ck?si=E-YuybM5bz28aTgQ

Producing Graphs for your project

Being edited!

Adding Your Graphs into your project

Referencing

If you’ve time this is a great little document from Queen’s University Belfast,

Filetoupload,1560644,en.pdf (qub.ac.uk)

Signature

Feb 2025

Project 2019+ UPDATED

Some really important information before starting out on your project. Plus some references you might wish to consult.

This is a sample of great References you can get if you sign up to the Archive. No idea how many of us can borrow these books at once!

I’ve tried really hard to locate the Publishers of Tyler’s “A Laboratory Manual of Physics” to sort out copyright, but no one is owning up to this. Edward Arnold was taken over and is now part of the Hodder Education Group. I contacted them and they’ve no record of this book.

I will take down these files asap if anyone objects. Please don’t fine me, I am trying to support Physics Education. This is the non-SI version, get an updated version if you can.

An adaptation of Tom Balanowski’s notes by Mr Bailey. This is a useful guide to teachers preparing students for their AH Physics Project. PLANNING is the KEY.

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If you are not familiar with Excel can I recommend you spending a bit of time looking over the post in the BGE section (link below). I’ll add a further advanced part for you below.

Other packages are available and some are more robust such as R but I am not sure whether I will introduce that to you now.

https://www.mrsphysics.co.uk/advanced/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Hookes-Law-Table-in-Excel.mp4

Note Document 6772 IS NOT CURRENT. It is based on AH from 2000-2015, but it does contain some useful hints, tricks and examples. Caveat emptor!

SPECIFIC PROJECT MATERIALS

Young’s Modulus

s2-7 Young’s Modulus

Episode 228 – The Young modulus_0

episode-229-1-analysis-of-tensile-testing-experiments

Young’s Modulus

 

Signature
June 2020

Units, Prefixes, Scientific Notation and Uncertainties

Here is a link to a presentation that I gave for the IoP on AH Uncertainties.

The slides are 1GB, so you might want to ask me to share those some other way. Here is a pdf of the slides, including example SQA Uncertainty questions

Below is attached various useful documents to assist you in this vital part of the course. It is when you begin to use this material when going through your own experiments that it will become clear. Take time to read and understand it.

AH uncertainties summary notes 2013 These are a great set of notes produced by SSERC.

Here is a pdf of the talk I did for Physics teachers on Uncertainties in AH Physics. If you want the powerpoint you’ll need to get in touch as it is 1GB!

Below is the presentation. It was made for teachers, but there are quite a few bits suitable for students. Maybe I should edit it for students. Let me know..

UPSN Uncerts These are the content statements covering this topic from the May 2016 Course Support Notes.

ppp graph uncertsAH physics graphical uncertainties

AH Uncert N Fancey G Millar AH Uncerts

Uncertainties notes Mrs Physics’ AH Uncertainty Notes based on the pdf file by N Fancey and G Millar.

AH uncertainties experiments 2013  Experiment sheets produced by SSERC.

AH uncertainties tutorial 2013  Questions from Robert Gordon College.

AH uncertainties tutorial solutions 2013 The solutions from Robert Gordon College. Q1 updated. I’ll need to check through the rest.

Measure gd practice

Measurung gd practice

Use this document very sparingly, it is not compatible with some of the AH mark scheme, especially in that it recommends you always round UP in an uncertainty. This is NOT what you should do at AH.- You’ve been warned! Contact me if you have concerns.

OHIO_uncertainty_notes Ohio

SigFigsUS SigfigUS

reading a micrometer   micrometer

Reading the Vernier Scale on the Travelling Microscope

vernier
Use of Linest

Linest

Hope these help you through your course. I suggest you read them through several times and quite carefully.

Here is a link to a presentation I gave for the IoP on AH Uncertainties. It is worth AH students checking it out.

AH-uncertainties/

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December 2020


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