Hieu Nguyen

November 25th 2011

Lab 7 Air Track Collisions

AP Physics C

*Partners: Sunny and Jason.

Collisions on an Air Track

Purpose: This lab investigates several collisions on an air track. With its property of
having a frictionless surface, the air track, along with the event timer and logger pro,
helps us determine the conservation of momentum as well as

Equipment:
Two carts
Several masses
Photo-gates
Event Timer (logger pro) and a laptop
Air Track with frictionless surface

Procedure:

1. Measure and jot down the masses of m1 and m2.

2. Before any collision, set the carts up properly. Make sure the photo-gate is keying in
data into Logger Pro with precision.
3. Cart 2 should be halfway between the photo-gates on the track.
4. Compress cart 1 to the rubber band. This movement generates force F to push cart 1
through the 1st photo-gate to get v1. Photo-gate 2 gives the second carts velocity.
5. Redo the experiments with the modification of the masses.
6. There should be four cases in total:
m1=m2, m1>m2, m1<m2 (for the 1st three cases, m1 is the one moving toward m2) and
finally, v1=v2=0.

Set Up:

Laptop

Cart 1

Pho
tog
ate
1

Cart 2

Pho
tog
ate
2

Air Track
Air
Compressor

Data Collected:

Case 1: m1=m2=302gr=0.302kg.
v1=0.353m/s.

v3= 0m/s

v2=0m/s.

v4=0.35m/s

Case 2: m1>m2
m1=0.402kg.
m2=0.302kg.
v1=0.47m/s.

v3= -0.05m/s

v2=0m/s.

v4=0.54m/s

Case 3: m1<m2
m1=0.302kg.
m2=0.402kg.
v1=0.36m/s.

v3= -0.05m/s

v2=0m/s.

v4=0.31m/s

Case 4: v1=v2=0m/s
v3=0.148m/s
v4=0.161m/s/
Case with height to determine the value of g:

height: 0.0128 (m).

t1 = 2.622s and t2 = 3.776s
v1 = .174 m/s and v2 = .268 m/s
L = 1.5m

height: 0.0256 (m).

t1 = 2.583s and t2 = 3.15s
v1 = .176 m/s and v2 = .271 m/s
L = 1.5m

Analysis:

For this part, four momentum conservations of four cases will be analyzed.

Case 1: m1v1 + m2v2 = m1v3 + m2v4

<-> (0.302)(0.353) kg m/s + 0 = 0 + (0.302)(0.35) kg m/s
<-> 0.106606 kg m/s = 0.1057 kg m/s
It could be concluded that the momentum is conserved because 0.106606 and 0.1057 are

very close. The percentage error is only about .9% with respect to the original momentum

pi.
Case 2: m1v1 + m2v2 = m1v3 + m2v4
<-> (0.402)(0.47) kg m/s + 0 = (0.402)(0.05) + (0.302)(0.54) kg m/s
<-> 0.18894 kg m/s = 0.184 kg m/s
It could be concluded that the momentum is conserved because 0.18894 and 0.184 are

very close. The percentage error comes out to be 2.6%, very small.

Case 3: m1v1 + m2v2 = m1v3 + m2v4

<-> (0.302)(0.36) kg m/s + 0 = (0.302)(-0.05) + (0.402)(0.31) kg m/s

<-> 0.1088 kg m/s = 0.1093 kg m/s

It could be concluded that the momentum is conserved because 0.1088 and 0.1093 are
very close. The percentage error turns out to be .6%.

Case 4: m1v1 + m2v2 = m1v3 + m2v4

<-> 0 + 0 = (0.302)(-0.151) + (0.302)(0.16) kg m/s
<-> 0 kg m/s = 0.002718 kg m/s

The momentum results are very close, with the percentage error of about .4%.

Mass
Sliding
Down

Angle
theta

For the first trial, we could see that a

F ma mgsin

v 2 v1
.268 .174

.084(m /ss )
t 2 t1 3.776 2.662

a gsin
g

a
.084
/ss )

9.843(m
.0128
sin
1.5

This value is very close to that of g, with the percentage error of only .4%!

For the second trial, a

F ma mgsin

v 2 v1 .271 .176

.167(m /ss )
t 2 t1 3.15 2.583

a gsin
a .167

9.785(m /ss )
sin .0256
1.5
Again, we could not get a better result! The percentage error is only .18%.
g

Conclusion:
For this lab, the equipment was well prepared. We only had to redo the experiment a few
times when two carts unsuccessfully collide. However, the rest of the data corresponded
nicely with the predicted result. The low percentage errors of the trials prove that the
tools, the process, and the quality of experiment were overall good.