False Acceleration Of An Object

In this lab, we observed gravitational acceleration of an object. The tools and materials included a metal track, the car for the track, a piece of index card, a pasco glx device with a photogate sensor, and an object to elevate the ramp. First, the lab group arranged the materials for the experiment. We elevated the ramp up a small angle. The Lab determined the total distance the car must travel to the photogate was 30 centimeters. We then measured a small “flag” that was made from an index card that is taped on the car. The purpose of the “flag” was to interrupt the photogate sensor in order to capture the time it takes for the cart to travel down 30 centimeters. The photogate sensor was placed on the ramp to make the distance of the cart travelling down the cart approximately 30 centimeters. …show more content…
We then derived the sin of the triangle made from the arrangement of the ramp. After measuring, we calculated the errors for each of the initial measurements. After those calculations, we let the car go down the ramp with five trial runs with the average as our measurement. We then used the max and min measurements to figure out the uncertainty of the time measured, the final velocity and acceleration of the car on the ramp. The initial velocity was zero since the car started at rest. We then calculated our downward acceleration to get our measured acceleration due to gravity. Then we determined the percent difference between our measured value and the actual value of gravitational velocity. After that, we predicted the velocity that would come from the cart travelling a further distance with the same acceleration. We performed the actual experiment and came to a similar