Simple Harmonic Oscillator
Sample Laboratory Report
On the pages that follow a sample laboratory report is shown. The large numbers shown on the report correspond to numbers in parentheses in the discussion that follows. This sample report is to be used only as a general guide. Your laboratory instructor may have additional specific instructions and requirements for your laboratory reports.
Each report should be clearly identified with (1) a title, (2) your name and the name(s) of your partners, (3) the date the experiment was performed, and (4) an abstract. The abstract should be a very brief overview of the goals and the main results of the experiment. If a known physical quantity was measured in the experiment then you should state the numerical value of the result that you obtained for that quantity and also state how close your result was to the expected result. It would be a good practice to write the abstract last, after you have written the remainder of the experiment.
In a section entitled Description of Experiment (5) you should describe the purpose of the experiment, the physics principles that are studied, and the procedures that were employed to complete the experiment. It is not necessary (in fact it is undesirable) to give a step-by-step account of your activities in the experiment. Rather you should summarize the main techniques that you used to get to your final result. It may be helpful to include a sketch of the experimental geometry (6). This can be done by hand or can be cut and pasted into your report.
You must have a section entitled Data and Analysis (7) in which you list and describe the raw experimental data collected during the experiment. Include any tables, graphs, results of best fits etc. as is appropriate. Describe how quantities were calculated from your raw data. If it is necessary to show a formula employed during the experiment then you may simply leave some space and write the equation in by hand as is shown by Equation 3 in the sample lab report.
On the pages that follow a sample laboratory report is shown. The large numbers shown on the report correspond to numbers in parentheses in the discussion that follows. This sample report is to be used only as a general guide. Your laboratory instructor may have additional specific instructions and requirements for your laboratory reports.
Each report should be clearly identified with (1) a title, (2) your name and the name(s) of your partners, (3) the date the experiment was performed, and (4) an abstract. The abstract should be a very brief overview of the goals and the main results of the experiment. If a known physical quantity was measured in the experiment then you should state the numerical value of the result that you obtained for that quantity and also state how close your result was to the expected result. It would be a good practice to write the abstract last, after you have written the remainder of the experiment.
In a section entitled Description of Experiment (5) you should describe the purpose of the experiment, the physics principles that are studied, and the procedures that were employed to complete the experiment. It is not necessary (in fact it is undesirable) to give a step-by-step account of your activities in the experiment. Rather you should summarize the main techniques that you used to get to your final result. It may be helpful to include a sketch of the experimental geometry (6). This can be done by hand or can be cut and pasted into your report.
You must have a section entitled Data and Analysis (7) in which you list and describe the raw experimental data collected during the experiment. Include any tables, graphs, results of best fits etc. as is appropriate. Describe how quantities were calculated from your raw data. If it is necessary to show a formula employed during the experiment then you may simply leave some space and write the equation in by hand as is shown by Equation 3 in the sample lab report.