Incline+Acceleration


 * Lab Title:** Incline Acceleration


 * Primary Authors:** Colleen and Carly


 * Contributing Authors:** None


 * Abstract:** The goal of this lab is to determine the mathematical relationship between the angle of incline of a ramp and the acceleration of a car traveling down the ramp. The point to uncover was if the acceleration would increase or decrease as the angle of inclination increased or decreased. This lab also shows the relationship between position and acceleration, because we saw as the position of the ramp changed so did the acceleration.


 * Introduction:** Throughout this lab we will be positioning a metal ramp at different degrees to see the effects when a car travels down the ramp. The car will start with an initial velocity of zero and it will travel towards the sonic ranger, which will give off sound waves to distinguish the acceleration of the car at various times. Next, using a system called Logger Pro, we will graph the acceleration that the sonic ranger collected.


 * Methods:** Our group chose a car that had a mass of 250 grams and we decided to perform five trials to find the relationship between the angle of incline and the acceleration of the car. We started with a larger degree of incline at 11 degrees and then gradually went to lower and lower degrees of incline, hoping to see a large difference in acceleration. We made sure to start the car at a starting velocity of 0 m/s so that the acceleration would not be affected. We also made certain that the sound ranger detected the movements of the car from the beginning of the ramp to the end of the ramp for accurate data.


 * Data:** As stated before, we started with the ramp at an incline of 11 degrees. The sonic ranger detected the car's acceleration as it traveled down the ramp and Logger Pro graphed the acceleration of the car on the computer, we then found the acceleration to be 1.659 m/s/s. Next we set the ramp to 8 degrees and used the sonic ranger once again to detect the car's acceleration. The acceleration for 8 degrees came out to be 1.237 m/s/s. After, we changed the ramp to be 7 degrees and found the car's acceleration to be 1.191 m/s/s. Next, we set the ramp to 4 degrees and found the car's acceleration down the ramp to be 0.5762 m/s/s. Finally we set the metal ramp to 2 degrees and found the car's acceleration to be 0.2722 m/s/s.
 * Angle of inclination (degrees) || Acceleration (m/s/s) ||
 * 2 || .2722 ||
 * 4 || .5762 ||
 * 7 || 1.191 ||
 * 8 || 1.237 ||
 * 11 || 1.659 ||

Follow up questions:
 * [[image:graphreal.jpg]]Results:**

1) Find the acceleration of a rising and falling playground ball: As a class, we used a sonic ranger to find the acceleration of a rising and falling playground ball. We also used LoggerPro to graph its position versue its time, and also its velocity versus its time. To find the acceleration of the ball, we took the slope of the velocity graph from its highest point to its lowest point, signifying its total time in the air. The slope happened to be -8.883, which means the acceleration of the ball was approximately -8.883 m/s/s. However, the general rule, ignoring "air", is that the acceleration of any given falling object is -9.8 m/s/s. Therefore, our class experiment brought us fairly close to the actual answer.
 * Conclusion: As the angle of inclination increases, the acceleration increases. And as the angle of inclination decreases, the acceleration decreases as well.**