Change in Height on a Ramp essays

Change in Height on a Ramp essays Inquiry 3: Change in Height on a Ramp This experiment studied the effects of changing the height of a ramp on a wheeled cart. The first question one encounters with this experiment is how will the change in height effect the cart. Well it is obvious that the cart, as all objects on earth, have the force a gravity to deal with. If the cart was on a flat surface then the force of gravity would match the normal force, and the force of friction would match the forward force, and all the forces would combine and equal zero. However because the cart is on an 11.2? slope, the forces are not equal, this means that the cart is moving. The cart has the constant force of gravity pushing down on it, so the cart accelerates down the ramp. If velocity and time are graphed, then what will the graph look like? The graph will not be linear; an accelerating object does not have a constant speed. The graph will be some kind of a curve. But when comparing the different graphs it should be constant because gravity is constant. Thus, the i ndividual graphs will be curves while the graph of the averages of the trials should be linear. This is because the cart will consistently accelerate relative to the height it is dropped from To set up this experiment a board about 2.5 m in length was placed with one side on a chair and the other on the ground, this created an 11.2? between the ground and the board. Then a computer with a motion detector was brought next to the experiment. The motion detector was taped to the top of the board so that the sensor would shoot down parallel to the board. The cart was then placed at different heights and measured in distance vs. time, and velocity vs. time. The cart was dropped from 0.5 m, 1.0 m, 1.5 m, 1.75 m, and 2.0 m. This distance was measured from the tip of the board that was touching the ground up. To find the data the cart was released from the specified h ...