Science Experiment Help

[Santa_Clause]

I have to conduct an experiment testing how the distance between dominoes affects the total time taken to topple.

I have one problem though. I've already done the aim, hypothesis, procedure and 'independent and dependent variables', but it also asks for a 'control'. What does that mean?

[runeman11]

do you mean control group?.. this is a comparison group that sort of sets the "standard" in the experiment and is compared to the treatment group. including it elimates the confounding variable of another change that might have occured besides distance.

EDIT: sorry for the technical response and it looks like brain and zephrys have got it down, just be sure to include replication (repeat it several times for both the control group and the experimental (treatment) group to provide validation).. and definately look into graphs (scatter plots etc..)

[Santa_Clause]

In plain English please?

[Brain]

You have to make some sort of standard condition for dominoe placement that you can compare the distances between.
For example:

If you make 0.00 cm the control distance: time for 10 dominoes to fall = 10s

(then compare your independent variable (distance))
If you make 2.00 cm an experimental distance: time for 10 dominoes to fall = 15s Thus you can conclude that the farther apart the dominoes are, the slower they fall (dependent variable being time (depends on distance))

You will want to do many trials with this kind of set up, and maybe graph it in excel? Graphs are pretty
I am PRETTY sure this would be the correct way to set it up...
if not, I'm a retard

[ZephyrsFury]

The control variable(s) are the factors (variables) in the experiment that you keep constant as you change your independent variable. So example of control variables would be mass, shape and size of the dominoes, acceleration due to gravity (although its already constant), etc.