A company designing a new bobsled for the U.S. Winter Olympics team is interested in the effect that initial velocity has on the motion of bobsleds. The company knows that the initial push of the team members is crucial to their success. The company’s team of physicists has been tasked in learning about the effects of initial velocity on the motion of the bobsled. The team must determine if the initial velocity of the bobsled affects its acceleration down the ramp. Thus, to assess effect of initial velocity upon acceleration, the team will analyze a model of the situation using carts moving down an inclined track starting at rest compared to carts moving down an inclined track with an initial push.
Prediction
When considering the relationship…show more content… Figure 3: The measured velocity of the cart as a function of time when v0 = 0 m/s2. The equation of best fit line through the data show acceleration as the slope value. Error bars are not shown because the systematic error was greater than the uncertainty of the individual point values.
Figure 4: The measured velocity of the cart as a function of time when v0 > 0. The equation of best fit line through the data show acceleration as the slope value and initial velocity to be the added constant. Error bars are not shown because the systematic error was greater than the uncertainty of the individual point values.
As shown in Figure 3, when the cart is released at rest the slope of the line of best fit for the data points, acceleration, was found to be a=1.0 m/s^2.
Similarly, Figure 4 shows that the slope, acceleration, of the line of best fit for the data points of the cart having v0 > 0 to be a=1.17…show more content… It is important to note the deviation between the data points in Figure 4. Because of the triangle effect caused by the video recorder and the high velocity caused by releasing the cart 27 cm above the point when data points began being recorded, the points deviated greatly. Thus, the line of best fit for the data points can only approximately measure the positive slope of the data points. It is also worthwhile to mention the fact that the time that the number of frames for each data point in both graphs vary by a factor of 10, as Figure 3 had data points recorded every 10 frames and Figure 4 had data points recorded every
