Name ____________________________Partners __________________Date

_____________
Route #: _______________ __________________
Vector To Office Lab

Objective: To introduce right-angled vector addition by calculating the displacement

between two specific points in the High School.

Materials:
Teacher directed route
One of three:
1. Measuring wheel
2. Long-track measure
3. Tape measure, string line, meter stick.

Procedure:
NEATLY draw a sketch of your route below (notice the compass rose), labeling each
hallway. Record your route number and your apparatus number. (make sure to have a
diagram of BOTH the top and bottom floor)
Route #____________ Apparatus #___________________

1. Working with your partners, QUIETLY measure the hallways of the route given to
you. Label the drawing above with measurements taken in each hallway. Remember
to turn only at right angles.
 2. Return to the physics classroom. If needed, convert your measurement technique to
meters and label the above drawing with the actual lengths of each separate straight
line path.
3. Rearrange the sketch so that all of the horizontal (West/East) vectors are along the
same horizontal line and the vertical (North/South) vectors are along the same vertical
line; sketch them below (on the left side) so that they form the two legs of a right
triangle. Again, label each horizontal vector and each vertical vector with their
appropriate lengths.
Drawing from step 3: Drawings from step 4 & 5:

4. In a separate drawing above (on the right side), sketch the horizontal resultant and the
vertical resultant so that they form the two legs of a right triangle. Add all of the
horizontal lengths and label the horizontal resultant vector, and do likewise with the
vertical resultant vector.
5. Using the Pythagorean Theorem and the tangent function, calculate the resultant
vector (length and direction). Record values to the tenths place. Show your work
below. Sketch the resultant vector on the drawing above.

Analysis:
1. Fill in the table below (values for magnitude MUST be in meters)
Class Values Route number, 25th Quartile 75th Quartile
(magnitude, angle) Apparatus number

Min / Max value Median

 2. Create two box plots for your classs data; One for the resultant vectors magnitude
and one for the resultant vectors angle Draw an arrow (one on each box plot) to
indicate where your values are.

3. Calculate the percent difference (indicates precision) between your values and the
class median. Show your work; You will have 2 calculations here!

Conclusion:
1. From the data, what combinations of apparatus and routes deviated furthest from the
median? What do you think the cause of this could be?

2. List two likely sources of error for your experiment.

3. Did it matter which route/apparatus was used to find the resultant displacement
vector? Why or why not?