Harry Potter: Graphing Your Motion
"So…how are we supposed to do this?"
"It's simple, Ron. You just move away from and toward the starting point, and Harry and I will record the movement and put it down on a graph."
"Sounds easy enough to me."
"Okay, Ron, get to the reference point – er, starting point."
"And what exactly is the starting point?"
Hermione looked all around – she couldn't seem to decide what to use as the starting point. Harry rolled his eyes and quickly told Ron, "Over there by that old oak."
"Alright."
Hermione flicked her wand, and meter markers appeared on the grass in all directions from Ron, so that it would be easy to measure how far Ron had gone.
"All set, Hermione?" Harry asked.
"All set! Okay Ron: ready, set, GO!"
And so Ron randomly began walking away from the tree. When he stopped, Hermione shouted, "Two meters away in five seconds!"
Harry marked it down on his sheet to be drawn later. Ron stayed where he was for a small while, giving a great yawn. When he began moving again, Hermione shouted, "Stayed where he was for eight seconds!"
And as Harry marked his sheet, Ron began skipping away, and it looked absolutely silly. Harry had major trouble holding back a laugh. After Hermione's report of Ron moving six meters away in four seconds, Ron then proceeded to collapse and lay flat on his back on the ground. Hermione was not amused.
"Ron! Get up!" she said.
"No," Ron protested from his spot a great distance away. "It's part of the experiment."
Hermione crossed her arms. "Fine."
When Ron finally got up to move again, Hermione muttered to Harry, "Stayed there for twenty seconds."
Ron walked Jack Sparrow-style back towards the tree, making a small giggle pass Harry's lips. Hermione shot him a not-so-pleased look, which shut him up. And then Ron sat his butt right down on the grass where he was, taking an apple out of his pocket and began to munch. "I'm done," he said.
Hermione looked annoyed. "Moved three meters towards us for five seconds, and then stayed where he was for the rest of the time."
Harry nodded, then showed Hermione the information he'd written down. She nodded. "Seems plausible enough. Ron, do you want to help us graph?"
"No." Chomp.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Fine then." She turned back to Harry. "Let's draw this." So she and Harry carefully drew the graph, examining it down to the last line.
"Is it good enough yet?" Harry asked after fifteen minutes of erasing and redrawing one certain line.
After careful examination of the graph she said, "Yes. It's up to perfection."
Harry threw down the pencil. "Finally. This assignment was stupid. I can't wait until we can just turn this in to Mr. Johnson and be done."
"Well, I don't know about you, but I liked this assignment, except for Ron acting stupid."
Harry could only roll his eyes. "I'm going back inside. Have fun measuring how far away from the tree you walk."