10 - Working Muscles - A Clothespin Activity

This was a tough activity for many reasons.  Not only did I have to move my fingers so fast they almost fell off, but I also had to count how many times I did.  It was tiring, but I was happy I did it because of specific thing.  That one thing is my graph.  I was surprised on how it turned out and exited to learn why.  Overall, I really enjoyed this activity and would do it again.

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• Write a one paragraph reflection, and answer the following questions:
  

1. Was it difficult to use the same technique throughout the whole experiment?
2. How did you hands and fingers feel BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER the experiment?
3. Describe how your data changed over time.
4. What errors or inconsistencies might have affected your results?
5. Why did your hand strength change over the course of this experiment?
6. How do you think your muscle cells get oxygen, nutrients, and water to make the energy they need to function?
7. What do you think you could have done to prevent your muscles from tiring?
8. What should you do if you experience muscle fatigue in the future?

1.  Definitely.  At times, I wanted to put the fingers of the other hand on the clothespin, use a third finger, switch hands,  and use my whole hand to get two pieces of thin wood to touch.

2.Before the experiment, my hand felt perfectly normal, untouched.  They weren't ready for what laid ahead.  During the experiment, my hands were hurting so bad they almost fell off!  The pain was like a pang, each one lasting about 2 seconds. At some points, they actually began feeling numb. After the activity, my hands were aching, but got better by the second.

3.  My data did change overtime.  At the beginning, I wasn't tired, so the number was high in trial one.  After that, my fingers were tired, so my results went down.  As my fingers got more energy, the data I collected in the next two trials were high, but got low again.  As you can see, my diverse data made a very spiky graph!

4.  An error that most likely occurred was that a third finger "slipped" next to my index finger, which might have made my results slightly higher.  Also, the amount of time in between each 30 seconds that Mr. Solarz reset the timer may have varied, which might have resulted in higher results in a round who started in a longer break.

5.  My hand strength changed over the course of the experiment because during the 30-ish second break, it got stronger.  When I started clicking again, my fingers were strong and fast for the first couple seconds, but got weak again.  The cycle starts again when the 1-minute period starts again.

6.  Our muscles cells get oxygen when we breathe oxygen.  Our lungs give the oxygen to blood, which transmits it into the muscles.  We get water when we drink it, dirty or clean.  Water can come in the form of food, like watermelon and cucumber.

7. I think I should have taken often breaks, for the muscles to relax.  The breaks would also have given me time to breath in and out, so that my muscle cells got oxygen.

8. I should probably stop doing what I'm doing, relax and take deep breaths, and drink water.  After a few minutes, I can resume physical activity.