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Displacement

Measuring Ava's Volume

 
Tub-Time Science
Since birth, dad has been meticulously tracking my height and weight. And while this information is pretty interesting, there will come a day when I hate him for doing it and demand that all this information be pulled off-line. Seriously, when I'm 21 and dad finally lets me go out on a date, how embarrassing will it be to know that the guy picking me up could have potentially looked up my "stats"? Very uncool there dad.
 
Until then however, dad pretty much runs the show so I've decided to just roll with the funny old guy and let him amuse himself with the whole internet thing.
 
But back to my "volume"... To start off, we filled the bathtub up enough to accommodate me going completely underwater, a recently conquered fear of mine. Once that was done, we used one of those tub crayon things by crayola to mark the waterline.
 
This took much longer than I wanted it to since dad insisted that the water be perfectly still so that an accurate reading could be made.
 

From there it was time to dive into the tub and start the "science" as dad called it. Right off the bat I was able to determine that "science" is nothing but a latin word for "no fun allowed while waiting".

 
According to dad, i was not allowed to splash around since any water leaving the tub would influence the results. Furthermore, I had to be totally still for over 2 minutes so that the water could settle down before going under. Give me a break... I'm 3! Dad must still be bitter about the whole "a beard trimmer is not the best thing to shave your head with" thing.
 

Anyway, after the water was completely still, I gently slipped underwater. As stated earlier, this is a new trick I learned this summer at the pool. No longer am I afraid of going completely underwater. However, that newfound confidence has always been directly linked to my being able to take a deep breath before doing so. For the purposes of this experiment however, dad insisted that I do no such thing after seeing just how much my belly puffs out when I take a breath. In his opinion, this would skew the results and make all our efforts up to this point meaningless.
 
 
After repeatedly expressing a desire to not go under without a breath, we came to a compromise and I was allowed one "baby breath". Fair enough.
 
So 1, 2, 3 it was, and just like that - I went under in the name of science. Simultaneously, dad took a green crayon and marked on the tub wall the new water level.
 
From the moment I resurfaced it was clear just how much the water level had gone up. It was really pretty neat and I got somewhat excited about this whole project for the first time...
 
That is, I was excited UNTIL dad picked me up and made me drip dry over the tub. Apparently it was critically important that I not take any of the water out of the tub with me else risk the integrity of the measurement. Upon further review however, we are not so sure that this would have really mattered at all. But seeing how it was getting late and I STILL had to take a bath once all this was over with, we chose not to think about it too much. One thing is for sure, it sure was annoying to just hang there dripping. Good thing mom had these bathtub finger paints as a prize for my being such a good sport. (see below)
 
Once I quit dripping, it then took dad nearly 10 minutes to refill the tub, 2 carefully measured cups at a time, to see just how much water I displaced. Each cup made the water level rise until the mark I made while submersed was reached. How much was that? (drum roll please) A whopping 84 cups. Pretty impressive eh? Makes you want to go home and try it yourself doesn't it? Well if you do, please let me know the results. Oh and one more thing, dad asked me to tell you, that is if any of you are still awake after reading all this, thanks for stopping by.
 
 
 
ava RVPR Rank Location Has Photo - 9/19/2006 2:59:24 PM
hey check me out! dad and i have been up to some science!
hankword RVPR Rank Location Staff Page Has Photo - 9/19/2006 3:55:01 PM
you're a sadist richard
robthompson RVPR Rank Location Staff Page Has Photo - 9/20/2006 10:37:21 AM
agreed. ridiculous, yet mildly amusing. poor girl.
loh1974 Location Has Photo - 9/20/2006 5:07:28 PM
Have yall looked into Westminster.... WWW.WAMEMPHIS.com
rvining RVPR Rank Location Staff Page Has Photo - 9/21/2006 10:05:10 AM
speaking of volume... robthompson is in the middle of a contest with a few of his buddies that they are tracking online. WARNING - graphic science content. http://fatnatics.blogspot.com/
aj RVPR Rank Location Has Photo - 9/21/2006 2:03:59 PM
solve this one next...why is the sky blue?
wmartin RVPR Rank Location Staff Page Has Photo - 9/22/2006 8:51:29 AM
Honestly that one is easy and I know it off the top of my head.
rvining RVPR Rank Location Staff Page Has Photo - 9/22/2006 10:05:30 AM
did some more math calcs here and this is what 84 cups equates to - 5.25 gallons, 1212.74 cubic inches, 4031.98 teaspoons or .7 cubic feet (that last one seems low)
wmartin RVPR Rank Location Staff Page Has Photo - 9/22/2006 11:49:00 AM
I was reading the comments and a thought arose. If I remember correctly the weight of one gallon of water is 8.4 or 8.6 lbs or something in that range (at a given pressure and temperature). So at 5.25 gallons and 8.6 lbs/gallon that would put aVa around 45.15 lbs. Is that anywhere near accurate? Also, it appears this whole experiment could have been done with a pen and paper and saved aVa the psychological trauma.
ava RVPR Rank Location Has Photo - 9/22/2006 11:55:28 AM
i am nowhere NEAR that heavy. what are you saying? i'm a 4T for crying out loud! that isn't even a Small!
wmartin RVPR Rank Location Staff Page Has Photo - 9/22/2006 12:04:07 PM
I made a bad assumption in my statement. I assumed aVa was underwater and neutrally bouyant. In fact, it has come to by understanding that aVa needed help staying under water. While under water she displaced 45.15 lbs of aqua but weight much less than that so she floats.
rvining RVPR Rank Location Staff Page Has Photo - 11/24/2007 3:35:24 PM
just in case you thought that the rubber band ball was my first flotation experiment, here is one I did on Ava over a year ago.

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