Lab 1 - Constant Acceleration

Introduction Name :__Gianna Malabanan___

Galileo was the first person to realize that all falling objects fall with the same
constant acceleration regardless of mass. His famous proof was dropping two
objects, a musket ball and a cannon ball from the leaning tower of Pisa; an
experiment that he probably never did. He knew that air resistance would skew his
results. He also had no way of timing things moving that fast. In fact, the “second”
hadn’t been invented yet. (The smallest unit of time was the minute.) Today’s lab is
based on what he really did do. He timed a ball rolling down a grooved ramp using a
stopwatch he made out of a bucket with a hole in it draining into a graduated
cylinder. To start the watch, he took his finger off of the hole. To stop it, he put his
finger back. The amount of water in the graduated cylinder was proportional to how
long the water had been flowing out of the hole. Imagine what Galileo could have
done with a laptop and our Physics lab!

We are going to use Vernier carts and software called Graphical Analysis to
measure time intervals and the vehicle’s displacement. The cart has a special wheel
with stripes on it. It uses a laser to count the number of stripes that go by in a second
to determine the speed.

Purpose: to demonstrate that acceleration due to gravity is constant and

independent of mass

Hypothesis: If we roll carts of different masses down the same ramp, then
_the greater the mass, the lesser the acceleration, and with smaller mass,
there is more acceleration_. (you decide!)

Materials:
Cart
LabPro
Motion Detector
Laptop
Track

Method:

1. Make a ramp by connecting a retort stand to one end of the ramp.

2. Download Graphical Analysis from https://www.vernier.com/product/graphical-

analysis-4/ and install it. Make sure Bluetooth is turned on.

3. Turn on the cart by pushing the power button. Run Graphical Analysis.
Choose Sensor Data Collection. You see the cart GDX… Click “Connect”.

4. You are ready to start the experiment. Hold the cart at the top of the ramp with
the arrow pointing down the ramp. Click the Collect button on the Graphical Analysis
software. When you see the graph starting, release the cart. A student should be
positioned at the other bottom of the track to catch the cart.

5. Record data with Graphical Analysis as you let the cart roll down the ramp.

6. Add a 125g mass to the cart and have the next member of your group record data
with Graphical Analysis as you let the cart roll down the ramp.

7. Add another 125g mass to the cart and have yet another member of your group
record data with Graphical Analysis as you let the cart roll down the ramp.

8. Repeat adding 125g masses until you run out of group members!

Analysis:
1. Click magnifying glass button on each graph.

2. Select nice smoothly curving portion of the graph position time graph. Click
graph tools (the button with the graph on it). Click apply curve fit. Select quadratic.
Click apply. Adjust the portion of the graph you have selected until you get a nice fit.

3. Select nice straight portion of velocity time graph. (It will probably be a little
lumpy. That’s OK.) Click graph tools. Click apply curve fit. Select linear. Click
apply. Adjust the portion of the graph you have selected until you get a nice fit.

4. Drag the data boxes on your graphs until they do not interfere with reading the
graph.

Observations:

1. Screen capture your graphs and paste them into your lab write up.

2. Open Excel. Copy the table below into Excel.

3. Click view options (the button with 3 windows next to the 3 dots in the top
right. Turn on data table. Choose your best 0.5s of data. Copy the Time and
Position data into this table. Use the table to calculate the average speed,
change in speed, and acceleration, for each time interval. DO
NOT COPY
THE VELOCITY AND ACCELERATION DATA FROM
GRAPHICAL ANALYSIS!!!!!
 Interval Average Change in
Position Interval Acceleration
Displacement Velocity Velocity
(m) Time (s) (m/s2)
(m) (m/s) (m/s)
-0.960
-0.956 0.04 0.003 0.080
-0.953 0.04 0.004 0.092 0.012 0.306
-0.949 0.04 0.004 0.104 0.012 0.306
-0.944 0.04 0.004 0.110 0.006 0.153
-0.939 0.04 0.005 0.123 0.012 0.306
-0.934 0.04 0.005 0.135 0.012 0.306
-0.928 0.04 0.006 0.141 0.006 0.153
-0.922 0.04 0.006 0.147 0.006 0.153
-0.916 0.04 0.006 0.159 0.012 0.306
-0.909 0.04 0.007 0.172 0.012 0.306
-0.902 0.04 0.007 0.178 0.006 0.153
-0.895 0.04 0.007 0.184 0.006 0.153
-0.887 0.04 0.008 0.190 0.006 0.153

Avg. Acceleration = 0.230

4. Find the total change in speed and average acceleration for your entire 0.5 s
of data.

5. Record the masses used by each of your group members and their average
acceleration values. (The carts have a mass of 300 g.) (Use the slope of your v-t
graph as your acceleration)
 Mass (g) Acceleration (m/s2)

300 0

425 0.251

550 0.229

675 0.227

800 0.23

925 0.23

1050 0.235

Conclusion

Was your hypothesis correct. Prove it!

My hypothesis proved to be incorrect. Each student used a different mass

and measured the acceleration of the cart. According to the data table
comparing mass with acceleration, it is evident that initially, as the mass
increased, the acceleration of the cart decreased. However, as mass was
increased further, the acceleration increased as well. This is because the pull of
gravity gets stronger as masses were added, and at the same time the added
masses require more force to accelerate, making it harder to do so. The forces
cancel out. The net force of the cart is proportional to the acceleration, while the
mass of the cart is inversely proportional to the acceleration.

Questions

1. The quadratic analysis of your position time graph yielded three numbers: A,
B, and C that fit into the equation x = At2 +Bt + C. Compare that equation to s = ut +
1/2at2. Explain what each of A, B, and C represents. (hint s = xf -xi)

A is half the acceleration

B is the initial velocity
C is the final velocity

2. Prove to me in three different ways that the acceleration of your cart was
constant.

1) The velocity-time graph yielded a straight line, which means that the
acceleration is constant.
2) The position time graph yielded a smooth quadratic curve, which also
means a constant acceleration.
3) The acceleration values in the created table were overall precise and
had a short range.
3. How did the mass of the cart affect the acceleration?

The mass of the cart affected the acceleration such that, as it increases, the
acceleration decreases. At the same time, the mass also increases the pull
of gravity, which causes the cart to accelerate as well. This resulted in
varying accelerations, where the acceleration of the cart decreased with the
first few increased masses, but as the masses were further increased, the
increased pull of gravity causes the cart to accelerate as well.