Appendix A Software Tips & Tricks 1 LoggerPro

1.1

To add a statistics box to a histogram . . .

1. Highlight all of the data points on the histogram. 2. Choose Analyze > Statistics. 3. A box will appear that includes the minimum, maximum, mean, median, standard deviation, and number of samples in your data set.

1.2

To t a line to a graph . . .

1. Highlight the region of the graph you want to t. 2. Choose Analyze > Linear Fit from the LoggerPro menu. 3. A line will appear with a box that includes its slope and intercept.

1.3

To create a graph . . .

1. Choose Insert > Graph from the LoggerPro main menu.

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2. LoggerPro will create a new graph without rst asking you what you want on the axes. Dont worry: this is normal. 3. Right-click on the graph and choose Graph Options, then choose the Axes Options tab. Under this tab you can. . . Choose the data sets you want to represent the dependent (y-axis) and independent (xaxis) variables. You can choose more than one dependent variable to plot on the same graph, but you can only choose one independent variable. Adjust the axes scales, or have LoggerPro assign them automatically.

1.4

To t an arbitrary function to a graph . . .

1. Highlight the region of the graph you want to t. 2. Choose Analyze > Curve Fit from the LoggerPro menu. 3. If the function you want is one of the functions listed on the Curve Fit menu, choose it. 4. Otherwise, click Dene Function and enter your desired function. 5. Press Try Fit. . . and click OK once the tting algorithm is nished.

1.5

To create a new calculated data column . . .

1. Choose Data > New Calculated Column. 115

2. In the dialog box that appears, name your new column and give it the appropriate units. The Short Name is what will appear on the data table, so make sure you ll that in too. 3. Select the data set you want to work with. If you have more than one, such as in Laboratory 7, click Add to All Similar Data Sets. 4. In the Equation box, you will specify what values LoggerPro should populate the column with. For example, if you had a previously existing column of data with short names of D1 and D2, and wanted to compute the difference between them, you would select D1 from the Variables drop down list, then type -, then select D2. You can access more complicated functions in the Functions drop down list.

1.6

To create a custom data table . . .

1. Open a blank LoggerPro le. You can do this by simply opening LoggerPro after unplugging all devices from the green hub on your table. 2. You will see a single graph and two columns of data: X and Y . 3. You can either . . . (a) Double-click on a column title in the table, which will allow you to edit the properties of that column (name, units, etc.), or. . . (b) Make an entirely new column by choosing Data > New Manual Column.

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1.7

To adjust the data collection settings . . .

1. To adjust the sampling parameters in LoggerPro, choose Experiment > Data Collection. 2. A variety of settings will appear. 3. Choose Mode > Time-Based if you want to take data for a specic length of time. You can set the sampling rate as well (in samples/second). 4. If you click the box marked Continuous Data Collection, LoggerPro will continue taking data at the specied sample rate until you click Stop.

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1.8

To set up your video camera for video capture . . .

1. Make sure your video camera is plugged in to one of the regular USB ports on your computer. 2. Open LoggerPro and choose Video Capture from the Insert menu. 3. In the box that appears, click the Options button, then click the Camera Settings button, then choose Camera Control. Set the Exposure slider to -3. This will optimize the exposure time to prevent your image from blurring while keeping it as bright and clear as possible.

4. After conrming the changes, you will see what the camera sees in a box in the upper left of the video capture window. Move the camera until it is positioned to capture most of the air table and is looking directly down at it.

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1.9

To record video . . .

1. After setting up your video, click Start Capture. After a short moment, video capture will begin. 2. LoggerPro will then record video for the next 10 seconds. It will then store your video automatically.

1.10

To analyze video . . .

After you insert or capture a movie, you need to make some adjustments so that your desired data sets (usually the x and y positions of some object) will show up correctly on a graph. The following buttons are useful. They appear to the right of the video in LoggerPro. Enable / Disable Video Analysis Either displays or hides many of the buttons used for analyzing your video. The buttons are initially hidden by default, so this button will be one of the rst buttons you will click before analyzing a video. Select Point Highlight a trace point in the movie object. Use this button to edit existing objects. For example, if you mis-click a point using Add Point, you can select the point using this tool and delete it. Add Point Allows you to mark the location of an object in a frame. Allows you to choose the points in the video that you want to record, automatically advancing through the video as you click. Set Origin Tells LoggerPro where the origin is. Click it and then click on the point on the video that you wish to be the origin. A set of axes will appear. Click on the large yellow dot on the x-axis and move it around to rotate the axes relative to the video frame. Set Scale Allows you to choose two points in the video, for example the two ends of the air table, and tell LoggerPro how far apart those points are in physical units, like meters, instead of pixels. Now the axis of your graph will be in the units of your choosing, rather than pixels. Photo Distance Use this to measure a distance in a video, once you have set the scale. Click the button, and drag across the distance of interest on the image. Set Active Point LoggerPro can track multiple objects. For example, in Laboratory 7 you will need to create separate data sets for the motion of two separate pucks. Use this tool to add a new data series or track a new object, or to return to a previous series. 119

Toggle Trail Displays or hides all the points that have been added up to the current time. Show Origin Display the origin of the movie object. Click again to remove the origin. Remember: the origin is set using the Set Origin button. Show Scale This will show the line used in setting the scale. Synchronize Video Sometimes there will be extraneous video frames before the event you care about. Youll want to synchronize the video with your graph so that t = 0 on the graph corresponds to the start of the action in the video, not some random earlier frame. To do this, make sure that the video is set to the frame that shows the point just before the puck launches (or whatever event you care about occurs). Then click the button shown here. Set the Graph Time equal to zero.

1.11

To add a FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) graph to sound data . . .

1. Choose Insert > Additional Graphs and choose Fast Fourier Transform. 2. A FFT graph will appear for your sound data. This graph will update as you take more sound data. Therefore, every time you get a nice graph, be sure to copy it to your lab report before collecting more data.

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2 Excel
2.1 Inputting formulas . . .

To input a formula in Excel, click on the cell you want to place your formula in, and begin your formula with an equals sign (=). There are several functions you can use. is used for multiplication + is used for addition is used for subtraction / is used for division is used for exponentiation (for example: 2 2 = 4) PI() is the Excel function for (use w/o argument, but with parentheses) SQRT() is used to take the square root of the number or cell in parentheses SIN() is used to take the sine of an angle, where the angle is in radians COS() and TAN() are used like SIN() ASIN(), ACOS(), and ATAN() work as expected. Excel knows order of operations, so go easy on the parentheses. For the arguments of your functions, you can use numbers just by typing them in, or you can use the numbers in specic cells by referencing the appropriate cell using its column letter and row number (ex. A2).

2.2

Finding sums, variances, means, standard deviations. . .

The four functions you will need to use the most are SUM, VAR, AVERAGE, and STDEV. These work as follows . . . SUM(A1:A15) will take the sum of all of the numbers listed in cells A1 through A15 VAR(A1:A15) will nd the variance of the numbers listed in cells A1 through A15 AVERAGE(A1:A15) will nd their mean STDEV(A1:A15) will nd their standard deviation 121

2.3

Cloning formulas . . .

Excel does formula operations by looking at the relationship between the cell where the formula is inputted and the cells that the formula references. For example, if you input the formula =SQRT(A1) into cell A2, Excel says to itself, I need to go one cell to the left and perform the square root operation on that, and then give the result in my current cell, A2. This means that you can click and drag formulas down if you want to perform the same operation on a set of numbers. For example, if you have the numbers 1 through 10 listed in cells A1 through A10, and you want to input the formulas below, you can do it in a way that is much easier than entering all of those formulas by hand. 1 2 3 A B C 4 =SQRT(A1) 9 =SQRT(A2) 16 =SQRT(A3)

First enter the formula =SQRT(A1) in cell B1 and hit Enter. With the mouse, click once on the cell that has your formula in it. You should see a little black square in the bottom right-hand corner. Click and hold on this, and drag the mouse down all the way to cell B3. If you click on cell B2 now, you should see a formula there that is referencing cell A2, not A1. The spreadsheet should look like this: 1 2 3 A B C 4 2 9 3 16 4

Now, if for some reason you always wanted to reference cell A1 when you drag the formula down, you could put dollar signs in front of the A and the 1, like so: 1 A 4 B C =SQRT($A$1)

Now when you drag the formula down into cells B2 and B3, you should see the following: 1 2 3 A B C 4 2 9 2 16 2

This dollar-sign procedure is useful if you are using a constant, like g = 9.8, that is the same for many cells. 122

2.4

Using Trendline. . .

Trendline is Excels version of Linear Fit. It is very easy to use. To add a trendline to a graph, do the following: 1. On the graph, right-click on one of the data points from the set you want to t. 2. From the menu that appears, choose Add Trendline. 3. A window will appear with a variety of options. The option for a linear t should already be highlighted. If its not, choose it. 4. Check the box marked Display Equation on Chart. Then click OK. 5. Your trendline should now appear on your graph.

3 Online Data Collection Tool

3.1 Location . . .

http://introlabs.physics.lsa.umich.edu/labcharts/

3.2

Entering data . . .

1. Choose Enter Data from the main menu. 2. A form will appear. 3. Select your room number, and enter your section number, group number (assigned by your GSI), the number of todays lab, and the chart number (on some days, you may need to submit more than one kind of data; the chart number is used for this purpose). 4. Input your values in cells 1-10 (or however your GSI wants you to input them), and click Insert record. 5. Your data is now visible to the entire class.

3.3

Viewing class data . . .

1. From the main menu, choose View Data. 2. Select the room number, section number, lab number, and chart number that correspond to the data set you wish to view. 3. You can copy the data into your lab report by highlighting the cells and choosing Edit > Copy from the main menu and then Edit > Paste in Excel. 123