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Important Definitions:
Force (F): something that causes a change in the motion of an object.
Mass (m): a measurement of how much matter is in an object
Acceleration (a): the measurement of change in an object's velocity
Experiment:
1. People will be in the car and the car will be in neutral
2. Every one second, someone will drop a cone outside of the car
3. Someone will push this car with a constant force!!
4. We will measure the distance between the cones and will calculate the average
acceleration of the car
5. Using the average acceleration and the force we will find the mass of the car.
d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 etc
Data Table 1:
Do calculations here:
Time (s) Distance (m)
𝟐𝒅
𝒂= 𝟐
1 𝒕
Data Table 2:
Do calculations
Avg. here: 2 x
Acceleration=
Time (s) Distance (m)
𝟐𝒅
distance/ (total time) 2
𝒂= 𝟐
1 𝒕
Force=Mass x Acceleration
1 lb = 4.45 newtons
2
Do calculations here:
Average Acceleration:
Total Total
Mass of the car + people: _______________ kg
Time: Distance:
How did the second acceleration compare to your prediction? Did it change more than you
expected? Less?
What do you think would happen to the acceleration if we pushed with twice as much force?
Why?