Rubber bands are surprisingly strong. When you try and drop something that is attached to a rubber band, it doesn’t fall very far.
Last spring we did an experiment where we attached a toy to a chain of rubber bands. Then we dropped the toy off the kitchen counter. We also recorded the distance that the toy dropped. At the end we used an equation (y = mx + b) to help us figure out how many rubber bands we would need to add to drop the toy down an 18 foot stairwell so that the toy would fall down but bounce up just before it hit the ground.
At the beginning of the experiment we had just 1 rubber band attached to the toy. We held onto the end of the rubber band while we dropped the toy off of our kitchen counter. We recorded the distance that the toy dropped and then added more and more rubber bands until the toy almost hit the kitchen floor, being sure to record the distance each time. From this data we were able to create a graph on our calculator.
The equation y = mx + b describes a linear relationship. In this equation each letter means something. “Y” is the distance dropped by the toy, "m" is the rate that the toy dropped per rubber band, "x" is the number of rubber bands we used, and "b" is a constant that adds distance that comes from the toy’s length and weight.
When we used 2 rubber bands, for instance, the toy dropped about 26 cm. 6 rubber bands nearly tripled that distance to allow the toy to drop to 90 cm. The rubber bans, then, added an average of about 14.5 cm to the
distance to allow the toy to drop to 90 cm. The rubber d
istance that the toy dropped. This pattern is considered
linear because when you graph the data it makes a line.
I bet you did not know that rubber bands could involve
math? From this math I was able to safely drop the toy be used by scientists to determine how far away an
down the stairwell. Next time I will describe how a linear relationship can
earthquake is.
--Jonathan Taylor
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