In high school physics about 22 years ago, we did an experiment to calculate the acceleration due to gravity by repeatedly dropping a weight with a ticker tape

In high school physics about 22 years ago, we did an experiment to calculate the acceleration due to gravity by repeatedly dropping a weight with a ticker tape attached to it that fed through a hole punch tool and measuring the spacing of the holes in the tape over time. As part of the analysis and write-up, we had to calculate the standard deviation across our sample runs. That seemed really tedious to me, so I wrote a program in BASIC that took a data file, ran the calculations and saved the results. I recall a certain to-do as the school deliberated over whether this was an acceptable way to complete the assignment, and I was asked to include the source code for my program so the teacher could determine that I understood the concept well enough to program it.