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  • Essay / An experiment on time and speed: a study of the rate of acceleration of an object

    Acceleration experimented with the speed and time of a falling object to produce a reasonable calculation of the acceleration due to Earth's gravity. The experiment was divided into parts, each with a specific procedure to determine the acceleration due to gravity. Both sides, however, required a basic photogate, an instrument that maintained a constant beam of light between two sides. The purpose of this instrument is to electronically measure the speed and time it takes for a falling object, in this case a ruler with strips of striped tape, to fall a certain distance. The falling object, a clear ruler with tape wrapped at regular intervals (d). The regularly spaced tape marks (d) are used to plot points for graphs of distance versus time, velocity versus time, and acceleration versus time drawn electronically by a computer program, Exp2_xva_t. Calculation errors have been taken into account. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayMeasuring the length of an interval on the ruler (d): An interval measurement (d) on the ruler is determined by the distance from the beginning of a transparent ruler segment to the end of the next segment of masking tape. However, there are more than a singular quantity of these intervals and so it would be inefficient (a significant error) to simply record the measurement of one interval to represent the population of intervals. Accordingly, the total number of intervals (N) was measured and the total distance (D) with a given absolute error of (±0.1 cm) covered by N intervals was also measured. To calculate the interval measurement (d), the total distance (D) was divided by the total number of intervals (N) to produce an average measurement for the interval measurement to represent d. The error of this average interval measurement was calculated by dividing the error of the total distance (±0.1 cm) by the total number of intervals (N). Part 1 – Calculating g using the slope analysis of the velocity versus time graph: To calculate the slope of a velocity versus time graph, the velocity and time of a freely falling object must first be measured and the points plotted on a graph. The free-falling object used is the transparent ruler with masking tape covering at regular intervals described in the paragraph above. The instrument used to record speed and time was a photogate. As described in the introduction, this is an instrument with a constant beam of light that is projected from one end to the other onto the photogate. Light can pass through the clear portions of the ruler, but the beam will be cut off once it contacts the masking tape, allowing accurate and precise measurement of speed and time. All data measured by the photogate is then displayed on a computer via a program called Exp2_xva_t. To begin the measurements, the Exp2_xva_t program was set up and the photoportal was powered on and positioned accordingly. The ruler with the masking tape intervals was held vertically, just above the light beam of the photogate. Once prompted by a partner to drop the ruler, it was released without any acting force to simulate a free fall. The data observed by the photogate were checked to see if the acceleration versus time graph produced by the computer program was relatively constant. If the graph of acceleration versus time was relatively constant, then the observed data was2.