The Dependance of Acceleration on Force

General:

In this experiment a cart will be pulled by a constant force with a piece of timing tape attached. Instead of white ticker tape and the ticker timer, bar tape and a photogate timer will be used.

An adapter must be used to connect the photogate timer to a ULI interface. Once connected, the Rotary Motion program was used on a Macintosh computer. Appropriate conversion between the linear motion and the "rotational" motion needs to be made in the data handling. Once done, the experiment can proceed.

Procedure:

1. The student will choose first a 0.5 N Force to pull the cart. Data will be collected and the acceleration determined.

2. The student will now try 1.0 N, 1.5 N, and 2.0 N. Repeat the above analysis.

3. Make a graph of acceleration versus Force

Sample Data:


Developed by John Baier, July 1997