(a) Find the velocity of the particle at time t. What is the velocity at t = 0?

We can produce a function for velocity by finding the derivative of a position function Using
that function, we can then determine the velocity of an object at any value for t. In this case we
use the power rule to take the derivative and then plug in 0 to find that when t=0, the velocity
of the particle is 0 m/s, indicating that it is at rest.

(b) Determine, using algebraic analysis, when the particle is moving in a

positive direction, a negative direction, and when it is at rest.

Negative velocity indicates that the particle is moving in a negative direction. Velocity at zero
indicates that the particle is at rest. Positive velocity indicates that the particle is moving in a
positive direction.
By this logic and the work shown above, we can see that:
The particle is moving in a negative direction from t-values on the interval [1,4).
The particle is at rest when t=0 seconds (as shown in part a), as well as t=4 seconds.
The particle is moving in a positive direction at t-values on the interval (4,).

(c) Find the total distance traveled by the particle in the first 6 seconds.
Plugging any value of t into the position function will allow us to determine the distance of the
function at that value for time. In this case we plug six directly into the equation and calculate
the distance of the particle after six seconds to be 147 meters. Next, we plug zero into the
equation to determine the initial distance of the particle when t=0 seconds, and find a distance
of three meters.
It would seem logical that we would then subtract the initial position from the final position to
obtain the change in position, however that won’t work in this case because as we saw in part
(b), we did have a negative velocity for a period of time. That means the particle was still
travelling, just in a different direction and therefore all distance covered whether in a positive
direction or a negative direction must be added to attain the total distance travelled. We would
only be able to subtract the initial position from the total position if the velocity had remained
in the same direction for the entirety of the interval, or if we were only trying to determine how
far away the particle was at a given time from the initial position rather than the distance it
travelled.
We can use the velocity function we produced in part (b) to help us figure out the total distance
the particle travelled. We know that the velocity was negative during the first three seconds but
hit zero at the fourth second before turning positive for the rest of the graph. That means that
we already know where the minimum of the graph is, and we can simply plug t=4 into our
position graph to attain the y-value. At four seconds we get a y-value of -41 meters. When we
do the addition, we find that the particle travelled 64 meters in a negative direction from y=3
to y=-61 and travelled 208 meters in a positive direction from y=-61 to y=147 over the six
second interval. When we add the negative and positive distance together, we attain a total
distance of 272 meters.

(d) Find the acceleration of the particle at time t. What is the acceleration at t
= 0?

Acceleration can be found by taking the derivative of the velocity function or the second
derivative of the position function. In this case we use the power rule to take the derivative of
the velocity function we produced in part (a) in order to produce our acceleration function. We
can then plug in zero for t. This tells us that when t=0, the particle is speeding up with an
acceleration of eight meters per square second.

(e) When is the particle speeding up and slowing down? Explain how you
found your answers.
Acceleration is the rate at which velocity is increasing, therefore negative acceleration would be
the rate at which velocity is decreasing since it is the opposite, and acceleration of zero would
mean that the rate of velocity is neither increasing nor decreasing. We find these values by can
plugging values of t into our acceleration function calculated in part (d). By doing so we find
that the particle’s velocity is decreasing from around [1,3), and increasing from around (3,).
More specifically, we know that the particle begins decreasing somewhere between t=0 and
t=.25, and it begins increasing somewhere between t=2.25 and t=2.5 though the exact value is
difficult to pinpoint exactly.
 Graphs

The position function is graphed above. We know that time cannot be a negative value
therefore we can ignore the portion of the graph on the left side of x=0. This graph supports the
answers I provided in part (c), because we can see that when time (x-value) was at zero, the
distance (y-value) was at three which confirms our calculations for the initial value. The second
image is a close up of the point (6,147) on the same graph which confirms our calculations for
the final value and shows that at six seconds the distance was 147 meters, however we can also
see that the particle first traveled in a negative direction and then traveled in a positive one and
that the minimum of the graph was at (4,-61). We can then add the positive and negative
distances of the graph to get a total of 272 meters travelled by the point (6,147).
The Velocity graph shown above supports our answers for parts (a) and (b).
In part (a) we found that the velocity at t=0 seconds was 0 m/s. The fact that we have a local
maximum with zero slope at t=0 seconds confirms that math. (The graphing software looks
slightly off on the image above, but I’ve included one below that is more accurate).
In part (b) we found that the velocity was negative from 0 to 4 seconds and then switched to
positive which is shown by the x-intercept at x=4. That intercept represents the particle at rest,
everything below it represents the negative velocity of the particle, and everything above it
represents the positive velocity of the particle.
The acceleration graph supports our answers in parts (d) and (e).
In part (d) we found that a(0)=8 meters per square second. This graph confirms that math
because we can see that they y-intercept is indeed at y=8.
In part (e) we found that the acceleration was negative from [1,3) and positive from three to
infinity. We can see here that at about x=3 the graph does go positive and our estimations are
reasonably close to the actual values.
Reflection Paragraph:

This assignment was pretty straightforward and is a very good summation of material
we covered regarding the application of derivatives. I think I particularly enjoy this unit because
I like to see how the math, we are learning in class can be applied. The largest issue I
encountered was trying to use the equation editor since I had never worked with one before
and the one, I downloaded seemed unnecessarily complicated, though after playing with it for a
bit I got a lot faster and began to catch on. Another issue was that graphing the problems
showed me where I made slight errors and upon graphing them, I realized I would have to go
back and fix the mistakes. Fortunately, this was a great way to check my work and the mistakes
were fairly easy to understand even though they required a lot of work to undo. Overall, I think
that this assignment was a great way to help me learn to do calculus online, especially since not
everything can be done only by hand nowadays. I also feel like having graphed these problems
and learned from my mistakes helped me to strengthen my understanding of rates of change in
the natural science and how derivatives affect these rates.
The derivatives applied here were in a physics example, though I know that derivatives
are also applicable in many other fields including my own major, electrical engineering.
Throughout the Summer I have been studying the basics of circuits to get a jump in school and
I’ve already seen some applications of what we covered in class. As we discussed, derivatives
are really just rates of change, or slope of a function. A familiar example we covered in class is
that taking the derivative of charge tells us the current. This is really helpful for me because
charge and current can be easy to mix up but understanding how the relationship between
them works makes it easier to keep them straight and have a better grasp of the concept. This
is not the only application of derivatives in electrical engineering. A couple of days ago I learned
the ideal equations for voltage, resistance, and current and was pleasantly surprised to see
more applications of derivatives. While calculus is a challenging subject, I have really enjoyed
studying it and I know that it is a critical part of my major and will be very useful after I
graduate as well.