Motion Blog/ Jonathan Ragsdale Samantha Pearson Angelica Vasquez NTSC 261L

Experiment Number 1 and 2 Sand Bag Experiment and Motion Man

 

Through the activities of the Sand Bag trials and "The Moving Man" model, our group has learned to understand the following concepts:

-The relationship between the distance an object moves and the time it takes to move there is equal to its velocity. This was evident in the sand bags activity, in which each sand bag was dropped from a moving object (a person) at a different time. The distances between the dropped bags varied, depending on the velocity at which the person was walking.

-Acceleration pertains to the rate at which this velocity changes. (Hmmm...the speed at which speed changes?) This came up when graphing data for the sand bag activity. The trials in which the person dropping the bags began to walk slowly and then increase the speed of their steps produced an exponential upward curve on the graph. (See graph #3.) And the trial in which they began quickly and slowed down over time created a curve that had a steeper slope near 0,0 and then became shallower, while still never flattening out to a slope of 0. (See graph #4.)

-The instantaneous or momentary velocity of an object is not equal to it's average velocity over time IF the object is undergoing a change in acceleration, be that positive OR negative. This became apparent when collecting and calculating data with "The Moving Man" model. This is because when the moving man was given an acceleration value, it was constantly changing in velocity at every moment. once a trial had been completed, the average velocity can be calculated by dividing the distance it traveled by the time it took. The instantaneous velocity was always greater than the average velocity in our trials.

-It is possible to calculate the acceleration of an object by dividing it's velocity by the time it took to travel the previously recorded distance. This showed up in the Moving Man activity, and is represented on our data table. The calculated acceleration is very close, if not equal to the acceleration setting typed into the Moving Man simulator. (In this case; 2, 3, and 4.)

Overall, we reached a greater understanding of the concepts of Velocity and Acceleration, their relationship to distance and time, and to one another.


Jonathan Ragsdale
Samantha Pearson
Angelica Vasquez

NTSC 261L




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Ramp Activity

For this experiment, we tested a toy car's velocity on a ramp with different angles. We first tested the car going down a ramp with 10 degree angle, next a 20 degree angle, and lastly a 90 degree angle. We set a distance of 52 centimeters for each trial so the results would so precise and accurate. Our results for the velocity at a 10 degree angle had an average of .89 m/s, at 20 degrees had 1.25 m/s and at 90 degrees had an average of 1.56 m/s.


Freefall:

During the freefall experiment, we tested a dropping a tennis ball and a golf ball at various different heights. We collected data of the time in took each ball to fall from each height.  We then calculated the data of the times it took each ball to fall. We put the data in separate data tables and graphs. We did this experiment to test the velocity and acceleration of falling objects??(not too sure..) The results were accurate.


Newton's Law of Motion:

Newton's Law of Motion relate to our every day life because we are constantly in motion, physically and mentally. We move by a force, whether its walking, standing up, running, etc. Sometimes mentally we need a "push" to be motivated and this push can come from a friend giving you advice, or a pat on the back and your whole attitude can change with that simple force. Every action has an opposite reaction in every day life, when you call someone a crude name, you react by calling them on back or being offended.


Energy

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