Name _____________________
Period _______
Waves Lab
Supplies:
Length of rope
Slinky
Meter stick
Piece of string
Rope lab
1. Stretch the length of rope between you and a partner. Measure the length of the rope:
____________ meters
2. If you start wiggling this rope back and forth, what type of wave will you produce?
3. Lay the rope along a straight line (use the tiles on the floor). Make a wave by gently
moving the rope off the line in 2 places. It will now look something like this:
Measure the following on your wave:
4. What is the amplitude of one of your waves?
5. What is the wavelength of one of your waves?
6. What would be the frequency of your wave if the entire rope demonstrates one second?
7. Draw your wave and label the following: amplitude, wavelength, crest, trough, resting
position.
Rope lab (cont.)
8. FM radio waves have a wavelength of approximately 1 to 3 meters. Using the rope,
construct a wave that has a wavelength between 1 and 3 meters. Keep the amplitude the
same for each wave (as much as possible).
What wavelength did you construct? ________m
Have your teacher verify your wave and initial here: _______________
9. What type of mechanical wave did you make with this rope?
10. List three other things that travel in this type of wave .
Look at the diagram of harmonics for stringed instruments:
11. Using your rope, shake it at different speeds to make a 1st
harmonic wave, a 2nd harmonic wave, a 3rd harmonic wave, and a
4th harmonic wave. Which waves were easy to make?
Were any difficult (or not possible) for you to make?
Slinky lab
12. Stretch a slinky out between two people sitting on the floor. Do not stretch the slinky
too far that you ruin it! Measure the distance between the two partners. ________m
13. Tie a small piece of string to one of the slinky coils (tie it fairly close to one of the
ends). Have one partner reach forward and grab the slinky and pull it back to make a
compressed area. Measure how far the piece of string moved from the rest position.
____________ m (cm/100) You just measured the amplitude of the wave!
14. Let go of the compressed area. Describe what happened when you let go.
15. What type of mechanical wave did you produce?
16. Draw an example of this type of wave and label the following: compression, rarefaction,
wavelength.
17. Now, have both partners reach forward and pull back an equal amount of slinky (your
third partner can measure to make sure you each have about the same amount. Both release
your area of the slinky at the same time. Describe what happened:
18. Read pages 510 and 511 about interference. What type of interference did you just
create?
19. Of the two types of waves you have made during this lab, which one would be the wave
type that sound waves are?
20. If you have a mechanical wave with a wavelength of .25m and frequency of 3.0 Hz
(remember a Hz is how many times per second). What is the speed of that wave?