MTM Challenge Blog post
For this challenge, nick and I had to calculate the mass of a can of soup. We were given 2 carts with a mass of 500 grams, the can, and two motion sensors.
To solve this experiment, we decided to keep the force constant and to measure the velocity of each cart,
Data and Calculations
Our plan was to calculate the total momentum before which was 0 because there was no movement,
the velocity of the car with no mass was .56 m/s and the velocity of the one with the can was 0.28m/s
Ptotal Before= Ptotal after
mava+mbvb=mava mbvb
.500(0)+ mb(0) = .500(56)+mb(-.28)
0= .28-mb(-.28)
mb= 1kg
the mass of cart 2 was 1 kg but since the mass of the cart was 500g we substracted that from 1 kg and got 500g for the mass of the can,
The can's actual weight is 478 grams so our prediction was really close, around 4% close. I think we are extremely close, and where we might have had an error was in the collection of the velocity, we took around 6 trials which might have not been enough, and next time we should take more data.
