Hanging Onto Physics: Hangers, Fixed Weight, Carts, Oh My

Hanging Onto Physics: Hangers, Fixed Weight, Carts, Oh My

Procedural Fun:

Experiment Set Up

Force Diagrams

First, we put the cart onto the rail (which was on top of the table) and the 2 heavy weights into the bed of the cart. Next we put the string through the pulley and connected the hanger to the string so that it was hanging off of the rail. We then put 5 20g weights onto the hanger.  hen the string was secured, we pulled the cart back so that it would be 50 cm (0.5 m) from the bumper. We then let go of the cart and timed how long it took to get to the bumper. We did two trials of this, then would transfer one of the weights from the hanger into the the bed of the cart. Repeated two trails with each round transferring an additional weight to the cart.

Data

It was Garett: Human Error

The only influential impactful form of human error I could think of would be possible timing errors due to the short span of time. The 0.5 meters leaves little room to prepare and time correctly. Other than that, it appears as if there was little chance for human error as the other elements of this lab were very controlled.

Slope of the Trend line: y = 0.91 * x

To Be Direct, Its the Second Law

The relationship between force and acceleration is described in Newtons second law as directly proportional. Force is equal to (mass)(acceleration), which means that in this experiment, because the mass is fixed, that the force and acceleration are directly related. The slope of the graph is 0.91, which should be 1, reflects the direct proportionality of the the acceleration and force.