Accelerated Motion Lab

Aidan Moretti (Michael, Scott, Juliette) Abstract This is the accelerated motion lab. We used a track, steel ball, stop watch, and masking tape. We used the masking tape by marking every .3 meters on the track. We let the steel ball roll from the same spot each time and used the stop watch to measure the time it took for the ball to reach each interval. We did this three times for each interval of .3m. The fact that the displacement vs. time squared graph is linear means that there was a constant acceleration being applied to the steel ball. The acceleration was found to be .119 meters per seconds squared. The biggest source of error was the reaction time it took to take the stop watch measurements. It is almost impossible to time when the ball is exactly over the masking tape mark. Also its hard to start timing right as the partner lets go of the ball on the ramp. To minimize this error, we did three trials for each interval and got the average, and we tried to synchronize when the ball would be dropped with a countdown. The results were a little off but they were close enough to draw a conclusion. Acceleration was constant down that track.

Calculation Section Displacement (m) .3 .6 .9 1.2 1.5 1.8 2.1 t-1(s) 2.03 2.25 2.62 3.09 3.72 4.06 4.41 t-2(s) 1.88 2.35 2.71 3.03 3.87 4.06 4.25 t-3(s) 1.91 2.16 2.68 3.13 3.75 3.91 4.35 t-avg(s) 1.94 2.25 2.67 3.08 3.78 4.01 4.34

Discussion 1. Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity.

2.

3. When speeding up the distance traveled during an interval of time is larger, when slowing down the distance traveled during that same interval of time is smaller. 4. The displacement vs. time graph is a squared graph, which means the physical meaning of the slope is increasing. Velocity is increasing, and since acceleration is the rate of change of velocity, the graph demonstrates the motion is accelerating. 5. The second graph is a linear relationship between displacement and timed squared. The units for acceleration is displacement/timed squared, so the physical meaning of the slope of graph 2 must mean it is accelerating since it is a positive linear slope. 6. One may use the second graph to find the acceleration by dividing a displacement measurement by a corresponding time squared measurement. If you do this in a few places and take the average of the resultant acceleration, that should be substantial. 7. The acceleration of the ball is relatively constant for a few reasons. First, since the displacement vs. time graph was a squared graph, that should that velocity is getting bigger equally. Then the second graph is linear and acceleration is the

physical meaning of the slope so it is staying constant throughout the graph. Finally I calculated a few points specifically for their acceleration, and they are relatively the same.