Dhruv Khurana Grade 10 Ruby Shanghai Singapore international School Word count: 1,000

Aim:
To investigate the relationship between potential difference and current for a Resistor in order to verify Ohms Law.

Hypothesis:
If there is an increase in voltage there will be a directly proportional increase in current.

Procedure:
1.The circuit was set up as shown in diagram 1. 2.The power supply was set to read 0V and the voltage and current were read from the volt meter and ammeter. 3. Step 2 was repeated for the 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 volt settings on the power supply. If the current was too small to read accurately, the range on the ammeter was Adjusted.

Graph:

Data analysis:
The major trend noticed in the results table and the graph is that as the overall current in the circuit increases, the voltage increases as well. This relates to the Ohm law, which states: the current through the resistor is directly proportional to the voltage across the resistor. Therefore the Ohm law is correct. There is no change in trend as seen from my graph there is a steady increse of 2 V provided there is a increase of A in current. The graph is a steady strait line with a gradient of 4. No anomalies were noticed through this experament, as there is a steady gradient throughout. The experiment was not very reliable though because the instruments used for measurement were of low quality and lacked precision making the results unreliable. However, the results of my experiment were as predicted and were exactly what the Ohms law predicted.

Discussion:
Ohms law states that voltage is directly proportional to current, provided that the Temperature remains constant. The straight-line graph that could be drawn from the data Ohm showed the mathematical relationship (V=IR) that exists between potential difference and current. Therefore Ohms law was verified. This was a trend noticed through out my experiment as the higher the voltage. The reason for this can be verified through the Ohms law. For example, when the potential difference increased from 0-2 the current increased by 0.2 as well and as seen from my graph through out my experiment there was a proportional increase of 0.2 Amp for every 2 volts increased, this rectifies the ohm law and shows it is valid. The hypothesis which I stated in the beginning (If there is an increase in voltage there will be a directly proportional increase in current) of this report is accepted, as according to my graph and my results table, there is a directly proportional increase in current if there is an increase in voltage. The scientific reason for this can be defined by the Ohms law which states: Ohms law states that voltage is directly proportional to current, provided that the Temperature remains constant. This is exactly what took place in our experiment. Therefore the hypothesis was accepted and was valid.

Limitations:
Ohms law is only valid as long as the temperature of the circuit remains constant. Resistance means friction, which causes heat, particularly with a resistor with such a low Resistance as 10. There was a high current travelling through the resistor, so there would have been some temperature increase with each voltage interval that was tested. As a straight-line graph was obtained from the data, no significant increase in temperature was noticeable (otherwise the graph would have been curved). However, if this experiment were to be repeated, a resistor with a higher value for resistance (~200 300) would be used instead to minimize the increase in temperature as a result of resistance. Before each reading was taken from either the ammeter or voltmeter, the meter was inspected to make sure that the arrow was sitting exactly on the 0 mark. Each of the meters also carried a percentage error of half a scale division. The voltmeter measured up to 15V with one line for every half volt. So, the volt readings could have been 0.25V out. The ammeter measured up to 3Amps with one line for every 0.2V. So, the readings could have been 0.1Amps out. For the first few readings the current was so small on the ammeter that 0.1Amps error made quite a large difference so a millimeter was used to give a more accurate reading. Resistors come with a percentage tolerance value. The 10 resistor that was used in the experiment had a 5% tolerance value. This means that it could have deviated 0.5 from the 10 it claimed to be. From the experiment , the resistance of the resistor was found to be 11.4 0.9 outside of the percent tolerance range. This could have been due to any of the issues discussed above.

Further Study:
Abstract Want to know how electrical engineers "trap" the energy in a circuit to make your favorite electrical appliance? Video games, computers, phones, and many other electrical devices use "resistors" in different ways to control the electricity in a circuit. In this experiment, you can make your own resistors out of pencils, and test the effect a resistor has on a circuit. Objective In this experiment you will test if the length of a pencil resistor effects the output of a circuit. References: http://techtoface.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Web_Ohms_law_triangle.gif