How does speed affect stopping distance? I chose to release a car from the top of a hill and let it roll down, as the height of the ramp increases the speed of the car increases.

From my graphs I have drawn I can see that there is a positive correlation between the speed and the stopping distance. Basically as the speed increases the stopping distance increases. However in my graph ‘speed v stopping distance’ it starts with speed increasing in a straight line and then the line becomes curved as if it would eventually flatten out as the speed increases.

From the ‘speed^2 v stopping distance’ graph a can see that there is a clear relationship between the two results basically as the height of the ramp increases so does the stopping distance. This is because as the ramp gets higher the speed increases and as the speed increases so does the stopping distance.

In conclusion, in response to the question ‘how does speed affect stopping distance?’ the answer is the faster the speed the longer the stopping distance.

Evaluation

There were a number of difficulties in getting these results. Because I was collecting the results this meant that there was quite a lot of human error. Also I didn’t have a great method of measuring because the rulers I had at my disposal were only 30 cm long and the stopping distance required measuring implements of longer length. There were other complications such as the problems with the toy car for example if one of the wheels was out of line then the car would roll down at a different angle making the stopping distance shorter.

However given the circumstances and short time I was given to carry out this investigation I would say that my results were fairly reliable. I collected no outliers and the largest range of my results was 3.0cm.

I am confident with my conclusion because I feel despite all the factors that could have gone wrong my results were reliable and made sense, and at the end of the day its common sense that the faster something travels the more distance it will cover to stop.