Putting it into Practice

Here is a which would be suitable to assess this coursework element. I do not intend to do the task for you but lead you towards asking the right questions.

Find the relationship between the length of a Nichrome wire and its resistance

Quality of Practical Work

What equipment will you need? How will it be set up?
A pretty standard experiment. have a look at www.practicalphysics.org

What range and sensitivity will you need for your meters?
Using 6.0V is probably enough to give a current which can be measured accurately. You should do some preliminary work to check this before you decide on an ammeter.

How many different lengths of wire will you test between what values?
In most experiment 7 values is the minimum. If you do a length less than 30cm the wire may get hot and this would affect its resistance. I would suggest from 30 to 100cm at 5cm intervals.

What systematic errors might occur? How can they be taken into account?
Making sure the wire is straight when measuring its length. You might also us a micrometer to check that its diameter is constant.

Improving your Measurements

Were your instruments the most suitable for the task? Were they correctly calibrated?
Zero error should be easy to spot. There are such things as ohmmeters which you could use to verify your results. What assumptions did you make about your ammeter and voltmeter?

Did you consider improvements? Did you improve your experiment after preliminary work?
When I was a lad we used Wheatsone Bridges to measure resistance. Look it up.

Quality of Communication

Have you produced a clear and concise (not too long) report?
Include a few photos. Start sections on a new page. have a title page. The whole thing should be no more than 10 sides including graphs and tables. Font size 12.

Have you given enough details of your experiment so that someone else could repeat it?

Is there a discussion of the underlying physics involved in the experiment?
Important to do this. At least half a page.

Have you checked your spelling and grammar?

Are your tables suitable? Have you included the degree of uncertainty?

Have you chosen suitable data to plot? Have you used error bars?
Use error bars on at least one graph.

Analysing your Data

Are any anomalous results obvious?

Does your analysis show a good understanding of the underlying physics?

Did you check any anomalous results?

have you made clear conclusions about what relationships you have found?

Do your conclusions take into account the degree of uncertainty and possibilities of systematic errors?

Other tasks could be ...

Task 2 - Find a value for the speed of sound in air using 2 different methods

Task 3 - Design, make and calibrate a sensor to measure the depth of liquid in a tank