SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

LAB 1 REPORT

Author: Ha Hoang Phuc, ID: 3748017

Groupmates: Nguyen Le Minh Hoang, ID: 3746851
Pham Tien Dung, ID: 3748428
Doan Luong Hoang, ID: 3749795
Pham Trong Nghia, ID: 3749159
Aim of lab.
Introduction:
During the lab activity, we record the data which shows position, velocity and acceleration
versus times of three slopes. So, it is obvious that Newton’s laws must be concerned. According
to the data of the experiment, the acceleration of the cart is not 0 m/s/s, which means all existing
forces of the cart are not balanced. Therefore, we can assume that the whole test is about
Newton’s second law, which states that if in the case of unbalanced forces, the acceleration of an
object (in this case, the object is the cart) will depend directly on the force acting on the object
and inversely on the mass of the object. To illustrate the relationship between position, velocity
and time, I use Excel to sketch the graph for position versus time and for velocity versus time.
Afterwards, I find the acceleration of the cart in three runs through the “Linear fit” function of
Excel and average acceleration from the recorded data.

Pre-lab Answer:
1. In our daily lives, we all think and agree that the greater an incline angle is, the faster an
object will slide down on that inclined plane. That idea has been proved through our
lives’ experiments and by many scientists before. In this lab activity, the cart moved
faster as the incline angle was higher. The faster the rate at which the cart slides down,
the greater force will act on it. Moreover, we have described in the earlier topic that in
Newton’s second law, the acceleration depends directly on the force acting on the cart.
Hence, we can brief this small discussion by a conclusion: the bigger the inclined plane
is, the bigger the acceleration is. [1]

The equation to show the relationship between incline angle and acceleration is:

(if the friction and other forces on the cart are ignored)

a=g * sinα

where: a: acceleration, (m/s/s)

g: force of gravity (is a constant number, which equals to 9.8 m/s/s)

α: the incline angle of the plane.

1
 mg sinα

mg cosα

Chart 1
It is known that the higher an angle is, the higher that angle’s sin number is. According
to above mathematic equation, as the angle α is increasing, the sinα is increasing, too, and the
acceleration is increasing at the end of the process.

Data Analysis:
Sketching the graphs of data for position versus time and for velocity versus time:

Position(m) versus Time(s)

Position(m)

1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0.5 0.7 0.9 1.1 1.3 1.5 1.7 1.9 2.1 2.3 2.5 2.7 2.9 3.1 3.3 3.5 3.7 3.9
Time(s)

Position 3 (m) Position 5 (m) Position 7 (m)

Chart 2

2
 Velocity(m/s) versus Time(s)

Velocity(m/s)
0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0.5 0.7 0.9 1.1 1.3 1.5 1.7 1.9 2.1 2.3 2.5 2.7 2.9 3.1 3.3 3.5 3.7 3.9
-0.2

-0.4

-0.6
Time(s)

Velocity 3 (m/s) Velocity 5 (m/s) Velocity 7 (m/s)

Chart 3

The accelerations for all runs from “Linear fit” function of Excel:

Velocity(m/s) Linear Mode

Velocity(m/s)

0.6
y = 1.049x - 2.0311
0.4

0.2
y = 0.7942x - 1.708
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
-0.2
y = 0.4373x - 1.1366

-0.4

-0.6
Time(s)
Velocity 3 (m/s) Velocity 5 (m/s) Velocity 7 (m/s)
Linear (Velocity 3 (m/s)) Linear (Velocity 5 (m/s)) Linear (Velocity 7 (m/s))

Chart 4

3
The average acceleration from the collected data:
𝑣𝑓 −𝑣𝑖
Formula for average acceleration: 𝑎= [2]
𝑡𝑓 −𝑡𝑖

 Slope 3̊: 𝑣𝑓 = 0.39 m/s, 𝑣𝑖 = - 0.4 m/s; 𝑡𝑓 = 3.625 s, 𝑡𝑖 = 1.7 s

0.39−(−0.4)
→ Average acceleration for slope 3̊: 𝑎 = = 0.41 (m/s/s)
3.625−1.7

 Slope 5̊: 𝑣𝑓 = 0.51 m/s, 𝑣𝑖 = -0.44 m/s; 𝑡𝑓 = 2.825 s, 𝑡𝑖 = 1.6 s

0.51−(−0.44)
→ Average acceleration for slope 5̊: 𝑎 = = 0.77 (m/s/s)
2.825−1.6

 Slope 7̊: 𝑣𝑓 = 0.52 m/s, 𝑣𝑖 = -0.36 m/s; 𝑡𝑓 = 2.45 s, 𝑡𝑖 = 1.6 s

0.52−(−0.36)
→ Average acceleration for slope 3̊: 𝑎 = = 1.035 (m/s/s)
2.45−1.6

Data Table:
Theoretical acceleration formula: a=g * sinα

 Slope 3̊: 𝑎 = g * sin (3̊) = 9.8 * sin (3) = 0.51

 Slope 5̊: 𝑎 = g * sin (5̊) = 9.8 * sin (5) = 0.85
 Slope 7̊: 𝑎 = g * sin (7̊) = 9.8 * sin (7) = 1.194

Theoretical Acceleration Average Difference, %

Slope Acceleration, from Graph, Acceleration,
m/s/s m/s/s m/s/s
Slope 1: 3̊ 0.51 0.43 0.41 15.68
Slope 2: 5̊ 0.85 0.79 0.77 7.05
Slope 3: 7̊ 1.194 1.049 1.035 12.14

Table 1

4
 |𝑎𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 − 𝑎𝐺𝑟𝑎𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 |
𝐷𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 = × 100
𝑎𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙

Answers:
1. The “Chart 2” graph of all runs of position versus time illustrates 3 concave parabolas. Due
to the same length of the track, those three lines reach the same peak at 1 meter, though, they
have three different lowest points. And, in each slope, the after parabola has the shallower
bottom than the previous ones, means all parabolas tend to be line segments at which position
equals to 1 meter. Moreover, the arc of the parabola of the slope 3̊ is longer than the other
ones and the bottom of the slope 3̊ ‘s parabolas is higher among 3 slopes. For example, the
parabola of slope 3̊ ranges from second 1.5 to second 3.7 while the slope 7̊ parabola ranges
from second 1.3 to second 2.5. Hence, we can conclude that the greater the angle is, the
shorter and more frequent the process of the cart’s motion of sliding up and down is.
The distance reaches the maximum point at 1 meter as the cart goes to the furthest destination
at the end of the other side of the track, which is opposite to the sensor. And when the cart
moves up the inclined planed, which means going toward the motion sensor. That results in
the reduction of the distance between the cart and the sensor. For example, at Slope 3̊, the
cart is 1 meter away from the sensor as it reaches the track’s end at the other side at second
1.5; and then gradually goes up as we can see in the “Chart 1” that the arc of the Slope 3̊
shows the distance is decreasing.
Position is one of the main characteristics of the cart’s motion, which is connected through
time. Then, we have the position versus time plot. In that plot, starting point of 3 slopes is at
second 0.5 while x-axis presents the displacement between the cart and the sensor, y-axis
presents the time rate of change. The position graph of all runs shows positive values as we
put the cart to the opposite side of the sensor.
𝟏
Besides, we have proposed function: 𝜟𝒙 = 𝒗𝟎 𝒕 + 𝒂𝒕𝟐
𝟐

2. The “Chart 3” graph gives us the data of velocity versus time of 3 slope: 3̊, 5̊ and 7̊. All
slopes’ shapes are segment lines inclining to the right, which illustrate that the velocity of
each slope increases as the time goes on in each segment line. As we look closer, it is
revealed that the inclined angle between the 3 slopes’ segment lines and x-axis are different
from each other: The slope 3̊ segment line has the smallest angle with the x-axis and is the
longest line in 3 slopes with the range from second 1.6 to second 3.7. However, the slope 7̊
reaches the highest point in velocity in the graph at about 0.5. Also, slope 7̊ has more
frequencies of reaching the peak.

5
 Provisional results: (Formula: 𝒗 = 𝒗𝟎 + 𝒂𝜟𝒕) while 𝒂 is Theoretical acceleration.
 Slope 3: 𝒗𝟎 = 0.04 , 𝜟𝒕 = 1.5 − 0.5 = 1 → 𝒗 = 0.04 + 0.51*1 = 0.55

 Slope 5: 𝒗𝟎 = 0.02 , 𝜟𝒕 = 1.35 − 0.65 = 0.7→ 𝒗 = 0.02 + 0.85*0.7 = 0.6

 Slope 7: 𝒗𝟎 = 0.02 , 𝜟𝒕 = 1.3 − 0.775 =0.525 → 𝒗 = 0.02 + 1.194*0.525
=0.64

Angle Graphical velocity, m/s Provisional velocity, m/s

3 0.42 0.55

5 0.54 0.6

7 0.55 0.64

Table 2

3. Sketching the graphs of data for acceleration versus time:

Acceleration(m/s/s) versus Time(s)

Acceleration(m/s/s)

1.5
y = -0.006x + 1.1453
1
y = -0.0027x + 0.8245
0.5

0 y = -0.0005x + 0.4133

-0.5

-1
Acceleration3(m/s/s)
Acceleration7(m/s/s)
Linear (Acceleration5(m/s/s))
Time(s)
Acceleration5(m/s/s)
Linear (Acceleration3(m/s/s))
Linear (Acceleration7(m/s/s))

Chart 5

6
The acceleration versus time plot of the Graph of all runs shows us 3 horizontal segment lines,
which is bowing slightly toward to x-axis as the process is continuing. The slope 3̊ graph of
acceleration versus time has the lowest starting point at 0.5 of y-axis. In the contrast, the slope 7̊
has the highest starting point at above 1 in the y-axis; hence, the slope 7̊ line stays above the 2
other slopes’ line.

The graphs of all slopes are above 0, means the acceleration of each slope is positive. Therefore,
the cart of each slope which ranges from second 0.4 to second 1.3 is increasing its speed, as we
let it slide down the track. The slope 7̊ has the higher acceleration versus time than the other due
to their different angles. As we have in above section, acceleration equals to gravity force and
value of sin of the angle. The slope 7̊ is the highest angle in 3 slopes, so its acceleration is higher
than the other ones.

4. The line chart “Chart 4” gives us the data of the acceleration determined in the plot of
velocity; while there is another way to calculate the acceleration of each run, which is finding
the average value of the acceleration from the plot of acceleration. The data of two different
ways of calculating the acceleration is illustrated in the Table 1 in previous section. We can
witness there are some differences in the numbers of 2 columns, though those are very small
differences.
The difference can be detailed if we apply the formula listed in Data Table section:

|𝑎𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 − 𝑎𝐺𝑟𝑎𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 |
𝐷𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 = × 100
𝑎𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒

Acceleration Average Difference, %

Slope from Graph, Acceleration,
m/s/s m/s/s
Slope 1: 3̊ 0.43 0.41 0.04
Slope 2: 5̊ 0.79 0.77 0.02
Slope 3: 7̊ 1.049 1.035 0.013

Table 4

7
The acceleration determined in the plot of velocity is more accurate, because it is an
instantaneous acceleration. When we use “Linear fit” function of Excel to bring out the
acceleration, it only ranges from second 1.5 to second 2.5. Therefore, the interval of it is under 1
second, compared to 1.9 in slope 3̊. Moreover, average acceleration is determined over a long-
time interval. Meanwhile, in the contrast, instantaneous acceleration is measured over a short-
time interval [2]. So, average acceleration calculation which is more general, consists of wider
range but has more inaccuracy rate as it ignores every small detail which could be important.

Conclusion:
Through this lab experiment of linear motion objects, we have investigated and clarified some
aspects of kinematics, and the connection among some quantities such as: position, velocity,
acceleration versus time. According to the report, we have also known that those quantities can
be influenced by many known and unknown impacts and forces around them like angle and
friction, gravity and so on. That states even the smallest difference of one quantity like 2 degrees,
can result in the whole test change of outcomes. Along with the application of physics of
experiment’s explanation like Newton’s laws, we made use of mathematics like trigonometric
formulas, to solve the problems and questions in the report, too. That is the relevant evidence of
the close-knit relationship between physics and mathematics.

References:
[1] T. Henderson, “Newton’s Law-Lesson 3-Newton’s Second Law of Motion”, the Physics
Classroom, para. 2, 1996-2018. [Online]. Available: Newton's Second Law. [Accessed:
Nov. 4, 2018].

[2] The Physics Hypertextbook, “Acceleration”, The Physics Hypertextbook, sec. 1, para. 4-
5, 1998-2018. [Online]. Available: Acceleration – The Physics Hypertextbook.
[Accessed: Nov 4, 2018].

8
Risk Assessment:
Risk Assessment Task Name: Kinematics
Assessor(s): Ha Hoang Phuc Date: 25/10/2018
Those at Students
risk:
Risk: Risk Rating Unlikely
Process/Job
Description:
Task Hazards Controls Already Action (Hierarchy
In Place of Control)
Block with eye Can be PPE
hook dropped

Hooked Mass Set Can be PPE

dropped

Action (Hierarchy of Control): Elimination, Substitution, Isolation, Engineering,

Administration, Personal Protective Equipment