- E.g. if the car is at the top, it has more GPE meaning it travels faster
- If the car is place in the centre of the ramp the it will have less GPE meaning it will travel slower down the ramp also altering its stopping distance.
The mass of the toy car: Dependent on the mass of the car depends how much friction will act on the car, the bigger the mass, the more friction acting on it.
Aerodynamics of the toy car: The more aerodynamic the car is, the longer it takes for the car to stop because the car will have less drag acting on it.
The will investigate the height of the ramp. I will keep the other factors at a constant to make this investigation fair.
Preliminary investigation:
For the preliminary investigation, the apparatus I will be using will be the following:
- 1 Toy car
- Wood to be used as a ramp and to measure the stopping distance of the car.
- Blocks to increase the height of the ramp
- A tape measure
Method:
- Set up the ramp and check for zero errors.
- The choose a starting height for the car
- Position the car at the top of the ramp (ALWAYS)
- Release the car down the ramp by just letting go,do not exert any force on the toy car.
- Measure the stop distance.
- Record the stop distance in a table
- Raise the height by using the blocks.
- Repeat the method.
To carry out this preliminary investigation, I used ‘Focus science educational software’.
I recorded ten readings, each reading was performed from a different height.
The starting height was at 3cm, I ended at 13cm, meaning I increased the height each time by 1cm.
The results are the following:
Evaluation of the preliminary investigation and how can I learn for my actual practical investigation?:
During the preliminary investigation, I didn’t obtain any anomalies, but to enable me to get more reliable results during my practical investigation, I am going to repeat each height 3 times.
To allow me to get a greater range of results I will increase the height of the ramp by 2cm each time instead of 1cm.
Practical investigation:
Prediction:
Following the data I obtained from my preliminary investigation, I am able to make a prediction of the possible outcome of the graph for my practical investigation. I can predict that as I increase the height of the ramp, the stopping distance will increase.
For the practical investigation, the apparatus I will be using will be the following:
- 1 Toy car
- Wood to be used as a ramp and to measure the stopping distance of the car.
- Blocks to increase the height of the ramp
- A tape measure
Method:
- Set up the ramp and check for zero errors.
- The choose a starting height for the car
- Position the car at the top of the ramp (ALWAYS)
- Release the car down the ramp by just letting go,do not exert any force on the toy car.
- Measure the stop distance.
- Record the stop distance in a table
- Repeat 3 times
- Raise the height by using the blocks.
Range and repeats:
- I will increase the height of the ramp by 2cm each time
- Start at 2cm and finish at 20cm
- Gain 10 readings
- Repeat each reading 3 times
Results:
Analysis of the results:
From the results table above, I can see that my prediction was correct.
The reason for the increase in the stopping distance is because as the height of the ramp is increased, the car gains more GPE meaning that more GPE will be converted into kinetic energy allowing the car to travel faster down the ramp resulting in an increased stopping distance.
Conclusion:
I have found out that by increasing the height of the ramp, the stopping distance will increase because of the increase in GPE and kinetic energy.
Evaluation of the investigation:
During this investigation, I noticed several ways in which my results were affected and ways in which I could improve my data, but my results are reliable.
One way I could improve my data is to of used a more accurate measuring device instead of a ruler to measure both stopping distance and the height of the ramp.
My results were affected by the way the car slightly moved across the board instead of travelling in a straight line, if this didn’t happen, the stopping distance I measured would have been greater resulting in my data being more reliable.
A problem that also affected my results was the fact that my toy car lost kinetic energy whilst moving onto the flat board. Because of the way the ramp and the flat board met, a smooth slope wasn’t created meaning that the car lost kinetic energy resulting in a smaller stopping distance.
My Friend suggested a way of preventing this problem, and that is by using paper between where the boards meet to create a smooth slope, this way the kinetic energy of the toy car cannot be affected by a bad connection.
