Low Car Friction Lab

Hey guys, so yesterday we did a low friction car lab in physics. That was pretty amusing... You'll get what I mean later. First, we laid a 2m ramp (high-low) across our desk. Along with that, we used a metronome and for those who don't know what that is, it is an electrical instrument that makes repeated clicking sounds at an adjustable pace (musicians use these). We set the pace at 120 hocks. Then we took our low friction car and located it at the high end of the ramp. There as it slid down, Alex (one of the lab group members) marked on the ramp, for every hock that ticked. We needed at least 5 data points.

 

 

Low friction car

Data



When we first began this experiement, we screwed up, so that was pretty hectic (that's why I mentioned it was amusing). We didn't measure the position of the car, but instead, the distance between two points. Anways moving on, as you can tell, the prediction my group came up with was correct. During the white board discussion, there was one group that had problems with their graph. We said that they could've pushed the car slightly, or their calculations might have been off (human errors). Continuing on, our class came to the consensus that the velocity vs. time graph would be a diagonal line because the car gets faster as it goes down, which results in the slopes changing. The velocity vs. time graph could not be a straight, horizontal line because it was not going at a constant speed. Lastly, we concluded that this graph was a polynomial graph because it had a curve, as it was going up.

Reflections: This experiement was alright. I thought the class discussion was very boring and confusing towards the end. Mr. Battaglia was writing things on the board and I wasn't very sure. I didn't ask questions during the discussion, which I should've. My mistake.

That's about it guys, thanks for reading!