UFPM Challenge

UFPM Challenge

Group ~ Miranda, Will C, Robert

Our goal was to calculate the exact time it would take for the cart to reach the same spot of a hanging weight that was quickly dropping.  We found the total mass of the system, which was .639kg (rounded to .64kg), and used that to find the acceleration.  

Here's a diagram of what our setup looked like:

We solved for the acceleration of the weight, enabling for us to solve for time later on.

To make it easier to understand the information, we drew a free body diagram of the system.

  We measured that the distance the weight would have to travel to reach the ground, which was .74 meters, and we knew that the acceleration was .78 m/s2.  Thus, we used our information to solve for the time it would take for the weight to reach the floor.

We already solved for the acceleration of the weight, so then we had to solve for the acceleration of the cart.  We measured that it took 3.6 seconds for the cart to move 1 meter, meaning it had a velocity of .28 m/s.  Therefore, we had to find the distance it would travel in the same amount of time it would take for the weight to hit the floor. 

This information meant that we had to position the cart .38 of a meter away from where the weight would hit the floor.  By releasing the cart from this distance and the weight from its height at the same time, they would potentially collide.  

Our hypothesis was correct!  When we released the cart and the weight at the same time, the weight landed in the center of the cart.  We had no percent error, because our time was exactly what we had predicted.

If you want to see our success, go to https://youtu.be/P3dvTJU3kcU