Group Member Names: Amanda Hulver, Susan Hong, Emira Ibrahimović

Kit #: 0539

Resistor Piano Discussion Questions

Copy and paste this document into a new document that is shared with your experiment group.
Briefly answer the following questions, download a pdf of the document, and submit on Canvas
when finished. Remember to include the names of your collaborators. (Note: You should
provide explanations and support for your answers, but this is NOT meant to be a lab report.)

Part I: Objective I
● For Part B and Part C, how does the voltage depend on position as you move across the
paper? Does it have a linear behavior, or does it behave differently? Does it have the
same range in Part B and C? Same slope? Explain your observations and reasoning.
○ As position increases, so does voltage. It appears to have a linear behavior. The
range for both is the same, as the potential difference doesn’t change.
○ For our choice of variable x, the slopes of the two lines are the same (we chose
two different units for each—the units for Part B were ½ the length of the units in
Part A). This is because x represents a fraction of the total length of paper (5*x =
1 length increment for part B, 10 * x = 1 length increment for part C), and since
the second paper is twice as long as the first one, we are measuring the potential
difference at the same fractional points between two papers.
○ Thus, resistance increases as length of the paper increases (because the slope was
the same even though the units in the second one were two times as large)

^ x: 5 columns of + per unit

^ x: 10 columns of + per unit

Part I: Objective II
● How does the voltage depend on position as you move across the paper? Does it have a
linear behavior, or does it behave differently? Explain your observations and how they
are related to the resistance of the paper.
○ As you move across the paper, voltage increases. The behavior is linear across
each section of the paper, but the slope changes when you move between papers.
(The green line on the graph is the slope through the thicker strip, and the orange
line is the slope through the thinner strip). Thus, the slope through the thicker strip
is larger because there is less resistance, which means the voltage will increase
more over the same distance.
Part II: Objective I
● Qualitatively describe the distribution of notes across your paper. Were they evenly
spaced? Briefly explain your observations.
 ○ They were not evenly spaced. The distances between notes increase the higher
frequency the notes get. This is because the frequency difference between any two
consecutive half-tones increases as you get higher.
Part II: Objective II
● What was your strategy for completing this objective? Explain.
○ Our strategy was to linearly decrease the widthdecrease the spaces between
adjacent frequencies as you move to the higher frequency end of the piano.

Comparison With Your Partner or Group:

● Describe any similarities or differences between your observations and those of your
partner(s). If you and your partner(s) worked with the same kit, briefly describe the role
that each person had in this experiment.
○ We worked with the same kit, so our observations were the same. We all
alternated roles throughout the whole experiment. Usually, one person was
recording the data, one person was moving the green wire around on the resistor
paper, and one person would read off the voltage/frequency. We also all worked
on the questions together.