The purpose of this experiment is to establish a relationship between position (x), velocity (v), and acceleration (a) on a track exhibiting both an incline and flatness by first utilizing a theoretical formula to determine the acceleration and verify the results with experimental studies. There are several technical terms utilized within this experiment that must first be defined; velocity refers to the speed of the moving car with both magnitude and direction (as opposed to speed, which only exhibits magnitude). Within the experiment, a photogate is used to measure the time it takes for the car to pass along the track; a photogate is a measurement device that utilizes a beam of light to sense movement. The photogate is connected to a computing device to automatically record the time measurements during the time period that the photogate is blocked. …show more content…
In this experiment, atheory refers to the theoretical acceleration calculated, acontrol is the acceleration down an incline without any added force, atrial is the acceleration when the car is given a small push, aforward is the acceleration exhibited by a car traveling in the forward direction on the flat track, and aopposite is the acceleration exhibited by a car traveling in the opposite direction (from Gate 2 to Gate 1) on a flat track. aexperimental refers to both acontrol and atrial, and should be the same as atheory. To summarize our findings, it was found that atheory = 0.523 ± 0.262 m/s^2, whereas acontrol = 0.447 ± 0.114 m/s^2 and atrial = 0.929 ± 0.387 m/s^2; aexperimental clearly is not the same due to a systematic uncertainty, so atheory must be adjusted by subtracting from it the average acceleration between the forward and opposite directions on a flat track, yielding a new value: atheory = 0.551 ± 0.262 m/s^2.