AP Physics 1 Labs

Ryan Partain
Katie O'Byrne, Michael O'Connell, Chris Prattos

Motorized Car Experiment

Materials and Diagram:

• Motorized Car
• Tape Measure (cm)
• Stopwatch (s)

Objective:

To determine the graphical and mathematical relationship between position and clock reading. 

Procedure:

1) Place tape measure on ground and secure it with tape.                   
2) Mark tape at 30cm intervals up until 300cm         
3) Turn on car and release it with the front wheel at zero.
4) Start stopwatch as soon as car is released.
5) Stop stopwatch and pick up the car once the front wheel reaches the thirty centimeter mark.
6) Record time in seconds.
7) Repeat Steps 2-5, increasing the distance to the sixty centimeter mark.
8) Repeat Steps 2-5 for eight more trials, increasing the distance thirty centimeters each time and ending with three-hundred centimeters.

Data:

Data Analysis:

The line of best fit was proportional: X=(V0)t. The y-value was position (cm).  The x-value was time (s).  The slope (V0) was measured in cm/s.

Conclusion:
 
     After testing the experiment, the outcome was that the clock reading was higher when the location of the position of the car increased.  In other words, it took more time for the car to travel a longer distance.  The time and distance traveled shared a direct relationship; as time increased, so did distance. When we graphed the data, the line of best fit was a proportional equation, X=(V0)t.  The slope represented the velocity of the object.  In the final equation, X=(48.603cm/s)t, t represents the x-value (time), m is the slope (velocity), and X represents the y-value.
     The data points may deviate from the line of best fit for a few reasons.  For example, the car may have been set at an angle in the trials. The car was missing some plastic and seemed to curve slightly to the left when  moving forward.  The timer also may have been inaccurate to a few tenths of a second which may have skewed our data since the distances were so short. Conclusively, we may have also placed the car at a slightly different starting point than exactly zero which, with small numbers, could have made quite a few changes in our data along with us failing to react at the exact time to stop the stopwatch at the appropriate interval. However, because all the results were close to the line of best fit, the few errors that did occur were not detrimental to the experiment.