Data from Henry Ma, Mills High School, Millbrae,
CA. Sept 2002 courtesy of Art Fortgang.
Henry and his group timed a low-friction cart sliding down a track
at various angles. They timed the cart using photogates. The angle
comes from the height at the start and the distance along the track,
which was 0.492 m for all runs.
The purpose was to figure out the acceleration of gravity.
time is in seconds -- the time it took the cart
to go the .492 meters down the slope.
height in meters of the start of the track.
Questions and tasks
What was the acceleration for each run?
What was the angle for each run?
How can you extrapolate that information to get the acceleration
of gravity?
Do that. What do you get?
What assumptions did you make in your calculations?
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