Final Velocity Lab

Conclusion: The objective of this lab was to determine the velocity of an object moving down an incline by applying the Law of Conservation of Energy. This velocity would then be compared to the experimental velocities to calculate the percent error. This objective was accomplished by releasing a dynamics cart on a dynamics track with different initial and final heights. The height of the ramp was changed by using textbooks to prop up one end of the ramp. An Airlink adapter was connected to the Sparkvue Application on the iPad to determine the velocity of the cart. On this application, a Velocity vs Time graph was displayed and the highest y-coordinate point was used to find the experimental velocity. A stopper was also placed at the end of the ramp to make sure

The data was recorded for three different heights (initial heights: 0.075 m, 0.12 m, 0.165m; final heights: 0.025 m, 0.035 m, 0.04 m, respectively) and three trials were performed with each height. The final velocity was calculated using the equation KEi+Pei=KEf+PEf. This equation demonstrates the Law of Conservation of Energy as the total mechanical energy that is present in the system initially is equal to the amount of mechanical energy present at the end (assuming there were no nonconservative forces such as friction or applied forces). The cart rolling down an incline shows the conservation of energy as before the cart was let go, all of the energy was stored as potential energy. Initially, all of the kinetic energy was 0 Joules; so all of the energy was potential energy. When the cart reached the end of the ramp, all of the potential energy (theoretically) was converted into kinetic energy. (On the calculations, the initial and final heights had to be taken into account, so the PEf was not set to 0.) For the trials, the average experimental velocities were calculated to be 0.98 m/s, 1.22 m/s, and 1.61 m/s. The predicted velocities were calculated to be 0.99 m/s, 1.29 m/s, and 1.57 m/s,