Physics Name _________________

Date: __________ Bk. ____

Toy Car Investigation

Note:

Each pair of students will need a toy car that travels under its own power in a straight line for some
distance.

Purpose:

To investigate the motion of a toy car, and make observations about its motion, and to experimentally
determine the speed of the toy car.

Materials: toy car, various pieces of lab equipment chosen by students, a group of 3 – 4 students

Part 1: Initial observations on the motion of your toy car.

1. Obtain a toy car from your teacher. Please be careful with the car as it is needed for a lot of
other labs in this and other courses.
2. Turn on the car and place it on the floor. You may move the tables and chairs if they are in your
way. Observe the car and describe what the car does. Be sure to let the car hit a wall. Record all
of your observations in the space provided.

Initial Observations:

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 Part 2: Determine the how “fast or speed of” your toy car.

1. As a group decide what is meant by “how fast something is or speed”.

2. Discuss how your group will measure the speed of the toy car. Include in your discussion what
equipment you will need, what role each person in your group will have, and be sure you all
understand what procedure you will follow.
3. Write down a rough set of guide lines or procedure that your group will follow. IMPORTANT:
Discuss your procedure with your teacher BEFORE trying it on the car. This may allow your
teacher to make suggestions to improve your lab procedure.

Rough Procedure Outline:

4. Prepare a Data table to record any measurements that you may need to make. Show your data
table (include units for measured values) in the space below:

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5. Run your experiment. If things do not work out then make changes to your procedure until you
are satisfied with your results.
6. Show any calculations that you may have had to do to determine the speed of your car and box
in your final speed value (include units).

7. Write out a detailed set of procedure describing what you did. Use numbers to separate each
step. You may take and attach pictures of your lab design to this lab paper.

8. Describe any difficulties that you encountered during your lab procedure.

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Conclusion:

9. In a sentence or two or three tell me whether you enjoyed this type of investigation and would
like to do more of this exploratory type of lab. Include here anything that you like to see
changed in the lab to make it more interesting for you.