Integrated Science 9: U3 - 2.1.

Forces: Lab 5: Cart on a Ramp

Cart of a Ramp Lab

Objectives
● Collect position, velocity, and acceleration data as a cart rolls freely up and down an incline.
● Analyze position vs. time, velocity vs. time, and acceleration vs. time graphs
● Determine the best fit equation for the position vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs.
● Determine the mean acceleration from the acceleration vs. time graph

Requirements for the lab report

1. Title
2. All preliminary questions and tasks must be completed before you start the experimental part of
the lab. Sketches must be done with Google Sheets, Google Draw, or pen and paper (using a
straight edge for straight lines) that you take a photo of and insert into your lab report.
3. Perform the lab.
4. All questions, tasks and sketches must be completed in the Analysis.

The Instructions for the lab are in a separate document.

Start you lab report here:

Preliminary questions:
1. Consider the changes in motion a Dynamics Cart will undergo as it rolls up and down an
incline. Make a sketch of your prediction for the position vs. time graph. Describe in words
what this graph means.

The sketch of my prediction:

My prediction of the position vs. time graph is that it will create a quadratic, in
which will show a cart rolling up and then rolling down the ramp. This could
also represent position and time having a quadratic relationship.

Interpretation:
To interpret this graph, this graph can be divided into 3 sections (as the
image below suggests).
In the first section of the graph, the cart is moving freely upward
because it is moving to 0 m, meaning it is moving closer to the motion
detector and hence represents cart going up the ramp.
In the second section of the graph, the cart reaches the maximum point
of 0 m, which means it has reached the motion detector.
Integrated Science 9: U3 - 2.1. Forces: Lab 5: Cart on a Ramp

Lastly, in the third section of the graph, it represents the cart moving freely downward because it is
moving back to 1 m from 0 m, which means it is moving further away from the motion detector; thus, it is
moving downward on the ramp.

2. Make a sketch of your prediction for the velocity vs. time graph. Describe in words what
this graph means.

The sketch of my prediction:

My prediction of the velocity vs. time graph is that it will form a graph with a
straight line facing upwards.

Interpretation:
The green colored part shows the cart moving freely upwards because it is
heading up to 0 (the red point in the image), which is the point where the cart
stopped, meaning it reached the motion detector. In contrast, the line after
the red point represents the cart moving freely downward because as the
cart moves further away from the 0 m, it also moves further away from the
motion detector.

3. Make a sketch of your prediction for the acceleration vs. time graph. Describe in words
what this graph means.

The sketch of my prediction:

My prediction of the acceleration vs. time graph is that it will mainly show a line
moving down, representing the cart moving gradually upwards. In addition, I
believe this could communicate that the acceleration would stay constant.

Interpretation:
(This may seem quite different from the prediction, but this is an extended
version I predicted for better interpretation.)
In the first section, we can see it is moving freely upwards because it
passes the 0 m point, but after passing that point, it moves freely down.
In the second section, it is moving freely upwards, seeming to reach 0 m
soon.
Integrated Science 9: U3 - 2.1. Forces: Lab 5: Cart on a Ramp

Analysis:

1.

2.

The highlighted parabolic part with blue is the free-rolling portion of the position vs. time graph. To explain
why all this is the free-rolling portion, if dividing the whole section into two by the middle, in the first
section, the cart is moving freely upwards, whereas in the second section, the cart is moving freely
downwards. Although the direction might be different, the whole section represents the cart moving freely
in either direction and hence it is the free-rolling portion.
Cart’s acceleration: we have found A (from LoggerPro, can be seen in the image above) to be 0.4372, but
because it is 1⁄2 a (in the instruction), to find the acceleration, it is 0.4372 times 2, which results in to be
0.8744 m/s^2.
Integrated Science 9: U3 - 2.1. Forces: Lab 5: Cart on a Ramp

Additionally, the cart’s acceleration during the

free-rolling segment would stay constant. The graph
of Acceleration vs. Time in the free-rolling segment,
which is highlighted in blue, also shows it is constant
as the image on the left shows.

3.

The slope found for the free rolling region of velocity vs. time graph would be 0.8715 m/s/s as the image
above shows. This slope of 0.8715 m/s/s corresponds very closely to the acceleration found in the
previous step, which is 0.8744 m/s^2, as the two have a small difference of 0.0029.
Moreover, we can understand that the slope will correspond closely to the acceleration because the slope
of the velocity vs. time graph equals the acceleration.

4.

As mentioned in step 2, during the free-rolling segment, acceleration vs. time graph appears to be very
constant.
The mean acceleration value of 0.8756 is very close to values of a found in Steps 2 (0.8744 m/s^2) and 3
(0.8715 m/s/s). More specifically, the mean acceleration is seen to be closer to the value of a found in
steps 2 (0.8744 m/s^2) than that found in step 3 (0.8715 m/s/s), only having a difference of 0.0012 with
step 2’s value of a (with step 3’s value of a, it has a difference of 0.0041).
Also, it can be seen that these three values all round up to 0.87, which can represent how closely the
three values are related to each other and cart’s acceleration being constant.