Woah, That’s a MASSive Acceleration
Emily Walters
Patterson - Block 8
Section I: Purpose/Introduction
Part A: Problem
How does the acceleration of an object change when the mass of the object is increased?
Part B: Objectives determine the relationship between cart mass and acceleration observe the effects of Newton’s First Law use Newton’s Second Law (F = m(a)) to calculate the force of gravity
Part C: Background
Acceleration (m/s/s) is any change in an object’s velocity. Velocity is the measure of the speed and direction of an object. Mass (g) is the measure of the amount of matter in an object. According to Newton’s First Law, an object at rest says at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an external…show more content… The independent variable was the mass of the cart, the dependent variable was the acceleration, and the controlled variable was the hanging mass.
By looking at the data table and graph, it is clear that the rate of acceleration decreased as the mass of the cart increased. The rate of acceleration for the 500g cart was 2.790m/s/s, but the rate of acceleration for the 2500g cart was only 0.6709m/s/s. The graph also shows that acceleration decreased exponentially. This means that acceleration decreased by a smaller and smaller amount every time 500g was added to the cart. For example, the difference between the rate of acceleration for the 500g cart and the 1000g cart was 1.209m/s/s. The difference between the rate of acceleration for the 1000g cart and the 1500g cart was 0.501m/s/s. The difference between the rate of acceleration for the 1500g cart and the 2000g cart was 0.3351. Finally, the difference between the 2000g cart and the 2500g cart was 0.074m/s/s. This proves that the acceleration decreased exponentially.
Section 5: Error