Forces: Required Practical: Acceleration

Question 1

What equipment is needed for this practical?

Answer 1

• Toy Car attached to a peice of string.
• String is looped around a pully + Other end of string is attached to a 100g mass. (Weight of the mass will provide the force acting on the car).
• Timer.
• Desk: Draw chalk lines at equal intervals.

Question 2

What is the method for this practical?

Answer 2

1) Hold the car at the starting point and when ready let go of the car.
- Because there is a resultant force acting through the string, the car will accelerate.
2) Record the time the car passes each interval.
3) Repeat the experiment several times + Decrease the mass on the end of the string.

Question 3

What is a problem with this practical

Answer 3

• If the car is moving rapidly it will be difficult to measure an accurate timel

Solution: Record the experiment with a mobile phone.

Question 4

What is the purpose of this practical?

Answer 4

• Investigate the effect of changing the force on the acceleration of an object while keeping the mass constant.
• Object isn’t only the car it is the:
• String, Car, Mass at the end of the string.
• If we take away some of the mass from the end of the string, we have to transfer that mass onto the car, to keep the overall of the object the same.

Question 5

What are the results from this practical?

Answer 5

• Acceleration of the toy car, is proportional to the mass on the other end of the string,

Question 6

What else can we investigate with this equipment?

Answer 6

• Investigate how changing the mass of the object affects the acceleration produced by a constant force.
• Keep the force constant at the end of the string.
• Attach a mass to the toy car.
• Record the car’s acceleration.
• ## Repeat the experiment increasing the mass of the car eachtime.

Question 7

What results should be seen?

Answer 7

• Increasing the mass of the toy car, decreases the acceleration.