Lab Report Physics EE on a water tank?

[studentdying]

Hey fellow IBers, I recently decided to do Physics as my extended essay as it is the subject I definitely find most enjoyable working on. I came up with the idea of basically investigating the relationship between the varying size of a hole in the side of a box containing water and the rate at which the water comes out. I'm not quite sure of exactly everything I'm going to investigate, I'm more primarily concerned if this topic will be enough to get me to 4000 words without having to BS anything. So, what do you guys think? Will this topic allow me 4000 words or will I have to edit it a bit or have to come up with something completely different? 

[sebastiang0918]

Hey!,

I think working only in that problem spends you at least, being promisingly, 500 words, describing variables, hypothesis, objectives, process, etc. So I suggest you to, in order to be able to explain and reach 4000 words:

1. Always make you the question "What happens if" because it shows your personal engagement (EE's criteria evaluated). In this case at Physics, you can relate it with Maths knowledge. 
   e.g.: What happens if a third-variable is present in the water tank...(bla-bla-bla)?
            A logarithmical graph could be done? π (pi), e (eulers') could be calculated?
    
2. If you don't see you really into it, then try to choose a more theorical topic.
   e.g.: Astrophysics (Has Math but comprensible one haha), Waves or Communication.
    
3. Take into account that all MATHEMATICAL PROCESS and FORMULAS, are not counted as words. 

Hope it helps .

[kw0573]

You can always try to search online for discussions on this topic, which on this topic you might quickly encounter fluid dynamics or differential equations. That means there is certainly some complexity to this problem but it means you have to be quite creative and organized in your investigation. A lot of modelling may be involved. EE has more to with the writer/investigator rather than purely based on the quality of the research question. If you cannot envision ways to thoroughly investigate this topic then maybe you should choose a different topic.

Let me give you an example. Suppose you are investigating friction. Sure it's quite trivial to just find coefficients of friction of some random objects. Or you can systematically modify your materials to predict how hardness, smoothness, material affect the coefficients. Same thing here; it's trivial to just make a few observations or calculate some values without exploring the topic in depth.  Best luck!