Physics Part

This is the Physics part of the Experiment

This portion of the experiment will deal with the physics involved in energy drinks. We will observe the effect of energy drinks on the reaction time of a subject who has drank a energy drink.

Reaction time can be simply defined as how long it takes from the time our body receives information from our senses to the time that the body makes a response to this information.

Testing the reaction time will be quite simple. A circuit with two buttons, a light bulb, a timer scaler and frequency meter, a power unit and a bunch of wires will be assembled. The timer scaler and frequency meter is to basically measure the time difference between the activation of the two buttons. The diagram is below:

The steps will be as follows:

1) One person pushes button 1 and covers his/her hand so the other person can’t see it, and the light bulb will go on.

2) Immediately when the other person sees this light, he/she would press button 2.

3) Record the data shown on the timer scaler and frequency meter.

4) Reset the timer scaler & frequency meter.

The time that it takes the light bulb to turn on and been seen by the subject and this same subject press a button is called the reaction time of that particular person.

The layout of the experiment will be the following:

1. 1) Before the energy drink is taken, the subject will first perform the test 3 times in order to measure the reaction time of an ‘unaltered’ subject.

2. 2) Then, after the selected energy drink is ingested, the same test is perform 3 times.

3. 3) The difference in results can be observed as the change in reaction time from a state not induced by the energy drink to a state under the effects of the energy drink.