Ramp Challeng

Ramp Challenge

In this challenge we were asked to predict the acceleration of a ball rolling down a table that was inclined, we were also asked to predict the velocity of this ball at 4 seconds. After many trials we found the average of the position of the ball, at 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, and 3 seconds to find as many points as posible without revealing the answer to the challenge.

 our data was the following:

Time              Position

 0.5s                  6cm

   1s                  20.5cm

1.5s                   35cm

2s                     56cm

2.5s                   81cm

3s                     105cm.

After doing this we found that the acceleration of the ball was constant, this created a top-opening parabola in excel.

To find the slope of this line we needed to square the value of T and since most velocity units are meters over seconds we divided our position by 100 to find the values in meters, giving us this chart.

As you can see in the chart, the slope of this graph, is 0.1157, and as we learnt in the classroom, the slope of an x vs t graph, is 1/2a, meaning that the acceleration of an object is double of the slope of it x vs t graph, giving us a constant acceleration of 0.2314m/s^2.

Because we have the graph that shows us position vs time, we were able to find the acceleration, giving us a velocity vs time formula that is v=a(t) giving us a velocity at 4 seconds of v=0.2314(4) v=0.9256m/s