Roller Coaster Acceleration Lab Report

How Mass affects Acceleration down an Incline

Sabeena Jagdeo, Brianna O'Donnell, Alec Wigdahl

Problem Statement: In this lab some friends are wondering if a roller coaster's acceleration will decrease with less mass in the roller coaster. The purpose is to test whether the mass of the roller coaster impacts its acceleration.

Prediction: The roller coasters acceleration will stay constant whether the mass of the roller coaster changes our not. This is true because acceleration is represented by velocity divided by time in equation one. a=V-Vot-to (1) In this equation time has nothing to do with

Connect the logger pro and motion sensor to the computer, place the motion sensor at the end of the track. Figure One below shows an accurate setup of the experiment. Once setup is complete record the mass of the car (roller coaster). Then, place the car at the top of the track and release it from this point. Collect the acceleration of the car and record. Repeat this step three times for accurate results. Next, place a 100 gram plate on the car. Then release it from the top of the track once again recording the acceleration. Repeat this step with an additional 100 grams plate added, and then again another 100 gram plate added to the car. Repeat each weight collection three times to get accurate results. Once finished collecting all data, clean up all lab

The purpose of this experiment is to test whether acceleration is indeed affected or not. The acceleration of the roller coaster will stay constant whether the mass changes because acceleration is not associated with mass as shown in equations one and two above. During the lab, setup the experiment according to figure one. Have the track at a 10 degree incline with four blocks, and have your logger pro and motion sensor connected to your computer. Release the car (roller coaster) from the top of the track three times for each mass of 530, 630, 730 and 830 grams recording the acceleration each time. The acceleration for each mass varies in number but are fairly close to each other as seen in table one. Table 2 displays the average acceleration and deviation of each mass. Figures two and three give sample position and velocity time graphs of each mass. Figure four displays the error margins for each mass. From the graph you can conclude that acceleration is not constant because a straight line cannot be drawn between each error margin. However, this is not true because there was error while conducting the lab due to the logger pro. Three out of the four masses were constant showing that acceleration is constant. The graph just shows otherwise because of error while conducting the lab. Overall the results of the lab conclude that acceleration will