On the Subject of the Position, Velocity, and Acceleration of a Cart Moving Down
an Incline Plane
Abstract
Creating a model for the position, velocity and acceleration
of a dynamic cart travelling down an incline plane. After
collecting data on the carts position as it travels down the
incline plane, I was able to calculate the velocity and
acceleration of the cart and create a model of the
movement using three piece wise functions. I also found
that models are specific to the angle of the incline, weight
of the cart, friction of the wheels and acceleration due to
gravity of the planet, although within my class, their models
had similar values to mine.
Introduction
The position, velocity, and acceleration are related in a very
predictable manner. I had completed this experiment in
physics 11, however I used extremely rudimentary forms of
data analysis and graph construction. I conducted this
experiment again in order analyze the data in excel, use
advanced data analytic methods, and construct a parametric
spread sheet to not only lessen the computational load on
myself, but make it so that if I entered an incorrect value, it
would correct all values it affects when the value was
changed.
Method
1. Set up an incline plane with two desks, one at an angle
and another that is parallel to the ground.
2. Tape a 2.5-3.5 meters of ticker tape to a dynamic cart, and
run the tape through a ticker timer so that the attachment
point of the cart is as close to the ticker timer as possible.
3. Your setup should look like figure 1 and figure 2
4. Set the ticker timer to mark the tape every tenth of a
second, or ten hertz
5. Turn the ticker timer on
6. Let the cart travel down the incline plane, make sure not
to let it run off the second table onto the floor.
7. Once the art has come to a stop or has been stopped,
turn of the ticker timer, and remove any extra ticker tape
from the time.
8. Remove the ticker tape from the cart, and make sure to
mark that end of the tape, as that is where the movement of
the cart starts.
9. Use the first mark on the ticker tape as your position 0
mark, and use a meter stick to measure the distance from
each mark to position 0 in meters.
10. Record this data in an excel sheet and use it to calculate
displacement, velocity, and acceleration at every tenth of a
second.
Figure 1 Figure 2
Paul Juralowicz
Science
Ballenas Secondary School
Figure 3
Results
The data was used to calculate the position, velocity and
acceleration of the cart for every tenth of a second, and
compiled onto three graphs. These graphs where then split
into section in order to create a piece wise function to
serve as a line of best fit. These functions where then used
to calculate the residual of the graph, to determine if the
line of best fit was accurate.
Discussion
In order to verify the accuracy of the models, I did a variety
of calculation with the models and compared them to the
reported values of next model up. For example, I found
(1) that the average velocity of the entire motion was 0.3162
m/s by calculating the slope of a line connecting the first
Figure 4
point on the Figure 3 and the last point on Figure 3 using
equation 1 to determine the position value of the line. I
then compared this to an average of the value on the line
of best fit (equation 2) for figure 4, and found that my
calculated value was off by 0.00007 m/s. Next, I compared
a variety of other points. The calculated instantaneous
velocity on figure 3 at 0.2 seconds was 0.11 m/s, while
observed velocity was 0.096 m/s. The calculated
instantaneous velocity on figure 3 at 6.6s was 0.02m/s
while the observed was 0.03 m/s. Finally, the calculated
instantaneous velocity between 4.1s and 4.2s was 0.31
m/s, while observed was 0.32m/s. This shows that my
(2)
model was within the margin of error of the observed
Figure 5 values. I then went onto the velocity vs time graph and
model (Figure 4 and equation 2) to confirm its accuracy
against both figure 3 and figure 5. I found that the
calculated average velocity was 0.0015 m/s/s while the
observed was 0.0014 m/s/s. I found instantaneous
acceleration at 1.2 seconds to be 0.35 m/s/s and at 4.0s to
be -0.25m/s/s while the observed was 0.200 m/s/s and -
0.300 m/s/s respectively. I then calculated the area under
the line of best fit (equation 2) for the entire motion,
finding it to be 2.244m, while the observed distance
traveled was 2.141m. I also found the area under the
graph between 4.0s and 4.2s to be 0.062m while the
(3)
observed displacement was 0.062m. This shows that the
velocity model (figure 4 and equation 2) is fairly accurate,
but not as accurate as the position vs time graph. This is due to error being increase tenfold
between position vs time to velocity vs time. This means acceleration vs times error is 100
times greater than position vs time. This is easily shown by comparing the area under the line
of best fit (equation 3) of figure 5 to the actual change in velocity of figure 4. I calculated
0.1905 m/s while the observed was 0.010 m/s. This is cause by both the compounding error,
and the lack of integration used in calculating the area beneath the line.
Conclusion
Although the model was satisfactory, it could have been better. For the most part, not using
calculus is to blame. With calculus, the position vs time graph could have been modeled in
one sin graph, then the velocity vs time and acceleration vs time graphs would have just been
the first and second derivative of the position vs time graphs line of best fit. This would make
the residuals graphs mostly random, which is optimal as that implies random error, as opposed
to systematic error. Many of the calculation to confirm accuracy would have been simplified as
well, instantaneous slope would have just been the derivative and area under the line would
have been integration.