Fan Cars
What questions did you ask?
1. What formulas will I use?
- acceleration = change in velocity / change in time
- velocity = change in position / change in time
2. What do we need?
- timer
- measuring tape or a yard stick
- markers
- the fan car
3. What measurements do we need to take?
- position over time
- velocity over time
*we also need the other group's data so we can make our prediction.
Summary
We began by setting up how we were going to record our data. We lined up a meter stick on the floor, turned on the fan car, and recorded its position for every second. We did three trials to make sure that our data was accurate, and we took an average. We then took the averages from Will and Robert's car, and compared it to ours. We created a graph using excel to find the point of intersection on the position versus time graph, and we concluded that the cars would potentially intersect after 2.48 seconds at the 60.01 centimeter mark. Below is the graph and table we constructed to find our prediction:
We created our prediction with our car beginning at the 0 mark on the meter stick, and their cart beginning at the 100 mark on the meter stick. This allowed for us to view the intersection, as one was going in the positive direction, and one was going in the negative direction.
Our prediction
Time: 2.48 seconds
Position: 60.5 cm
Actual Test
Time: 2.9 seconds
Position: 63 cm
Percent Error
percent error = actual-predicted / actual
Our percent error was 4.7%!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment