The Dent Stoppers 2020-2021

If we open a door into a drywall, (one unpainted, one painted with water-based paint, and one painted with oil-based paint) twenty times each, then the greater the acceleration, the deeper the dent, and the water-based painted wall will have the smallest dent. We think this because our research shows that water-based paint is more flexible than oil-based paint, making it less susceptible to cracking or denting.  

Control Group: Our control group is the unpainted drywall.

Independent Variables: Our independent variables are the different types of paint we are using and the different accelerations of the door.

Dependent Variable: Our dependent variable is the depth of the dents in the drywalls.

Controlled Factors (Constants): How far the drywall is from the door, doing the experiment inside, using the same door, and are using the same doorknob. 

Procedure:

When conducting this experiment, we first made sure we were being safe by:

• Making sure we had our guardians' permission and parent supervision to use the razor knife.

• Making sure no one’s hands and/or other body parts are near the place where the door will hit the drywall.

• Having the person holding the drywall put on the gloves and protective eyewear. 

• Not pointing the razor knife at anyone at any point in time.

• Not throw the razor knife.

• Making sure no little person, (such as a baby sibling) is in possession of the razor knife.

After taking these precautions, we painted all three drywalls with the primer. Next, we painted one of the primed drywalls with the water-based paint, another one of the primed drywalls with oil-based paint, and kept one of the drywalls unpainted. Then, using the "Arduino Science Journal" app to measure the door acceleration, we slammed the door into each of the three drywalls twenty times each. Lastly, after slamming the doors into the drywalls, we used clay/play-doh to measure the dent depths.