Investigation is to see how changing the height of a ramp affects the stopping distance of a toy car.
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Introduction
GCSE PHYSICS COURSEWORK:
INVESTIGATING STOPPING DISTANCE
BY FAHIM TALUKDER 11TS
PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION
AIM
The aim of this investigation is to see how changing the height of a ramp affects the stopping distance of a toy car.
APPARATUS
- Metre Ruler
- Toy Car
- Boss and Clamp
- Stand
- Ruler to measure height of ramp where toy car will be released
- Ramp
DIAGRAM
PREDICTION
I predict that if I increase the height of the ramp, the further the stopping distance would be. I feel that this is because the higher the ramp, the more G.P.E (gravitational potential energy) it will have. Therefore the more energy it will have, thus increasing the stopping distance of the car as it will take longer for the forces working against the car (i.e. friction etc) to stop it. In our investigation we will not be changing the mass of the car or the gravity as I have mentioned in the fair test, as these two will always be constant in this investigation, therefore here the G.P.E is dependent on the height of the ramp.
METHOD
- Collect al the apparatus needed for the investigation
- Attach a boss to the stand
- Connect ramp to the boss
- Lay out a metre ruler starting from the end of the ramp on the desk so that I can measure how far the toy car has travelled, i.e. its stopping distance
- Place toy car on the ramp and let the car roll down the ramp
- Take the measurement
- Take two readings for each height to obtain an average
- Record results in a table and plot a graph
WHY A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION WAS DONE
A carried out this preliminary investigation before I did the real one to get a rough idea of how height does affect the stopping distance of a toy car.
Middle
OBTAINING EVIDENCE
SAFETY
Safety is an important aspect in every investigation, even if the investigation seems to be very harmless. This is why I'll be taking this into consideration.
- I will be working with very heavy apparatus such as the stand and clamp and if I don’t use them appropriately I could seriously hurt someone if it falls on someone or if it hits them.
- The psion and the light are very valuable and thus I should use them to good effect and only for work purpose.
- I will make sure that the boss and clamp are tightened to the stand so that the apparatus doesn’t fall off and hurt somebody.
- I will work in a corner around large space in the middle of a desktop so that the apparatus doesn’t fall over, i.e. make sure that there could be little chance of someone knocking it over.
TIME LIMIT, RANGES, AND AMONUT OF READINGS
There is no set time limit for this investigation however we were advised by the teacher to get it complete preferably within 1 hour as this investigation doesn’t take that long. After I had completed my preliminary results we only gained 2 results to come to gain an average we believed this was insufficient therefore for this final investigation we shall take three readings for each height that we cover so that I can work out the average and therefore iron out any anomalies. The range that we are going to use in this final investigation is 3cm to 10cm.
Conclusion
RESULTS TABLE
This is a model results table of how the results will be stored.
weiht put on trolley (g) | Stopping distance of toy car 1 (cm) | Stopping distance of toy car 2 (cm) | Stopping distance of toy car 3 (cm) | Stopping distance of toy car 4 (cm) | Stopping distance of toy car 5 (cm) | Stopping distance of toy car 6 (cm) | Average Stopping Distance (cm) |
25g | |||||||
50g | |||||||
75g | |||||||
100g | |||||||
125g | |||||||
150g | |||||||
175g | |||||||
200g | |||||||
225g | |||||||
250g |
This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Forces and Motion section.
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