Acceleration in traveling object
Acceleration in traveling object
Project title: Acceleration in traveling object
Objective:
The purposes of this project is to allow students to explore different ways of measuring the acceleration (and deceleration) of a moving object and compare the accuracy of the results obtained with that measured directly by a 3-axis Acceleration Altimeter (an acceleration sensor).
Introduction:
When the velocity of an object changes with time, the object is said to be accelerating. In other words, acceleration is the rate of change of velocity. To be more numerical, acceleration is the second order derivative of displacement with respect to time. It is a vector quantity. The SI unit of acceleration is meter per second squared (m/s2). For the case of motion in a straight line, when the object’s velocity and acceleration are in the same direction, the object is speeding up. On the other hand, when the object’s velocity and acceleration are in opposite directions, the object is slowing down.
Description:
In this project, you should first choose a traveling object (e.g. a public transport or a Ferris wheel etc.) and design a hand-made accelerator to measure the acceleration of it. On the other hand, you will also be provided with you a 3-axis Acceleration Altimeter for measuring the acceleration directly, which the result can be displayed through computer. You can hence compare the acceleration found from your own method with that obtained by the Acceleration Altimeter to see how accurate your results are and figure out thepossible sources of error. Modifications should be made for improving your design and measurement.
Before experiments:
You are required to figure out a project plan and construct the experimental procedures by yourself before your actual start of your experiment. Please aware and state out any assumptions you have made in the project.
During experiments:
While performing the actual try out of the experiments, observation will be a crucial factor for making modifications and even exploration in further aspects.
After experiment:
You have to analysis the raw data and transform them into meaningful information after experiments. Reasonable conclusion and error analysis should be made at the end.
Apparatus:
3-axis Acceleration Altimeter
Protractor
Weight
String
Activity:
As a warm-up activity for you to get familiar with the use of the acceleration sensor, a simple exercise can be performed as follow:
Ask one of your group memberto sit on an office chair (with moving wheels) holding in his/her hand firmly the Acceleration Altimeter (try keep the altimeter as stable as possible). Ask another group memberto give him/her a push and hence the Acceleration Altimeter will record the acceleration of this motion. You can try this for several times and different group members can also be chosen to perform the same activity.
After capturing and collecting all the required data, you can import them to the computer(computer software should be installed first) and view back for analysis.
Possible Method:
Below is one possible method for measuring the acceleration of an object using simple tools and apparatus. You can take it as a reference for you to design you own method of measurement.
Procedures:
1.Use a string to attach an object as a weight
2.Suspend the weight in air inside a moving object
3.Record the angle between the initial and final position using a protractor when the object start moving
4.Use Newton’s law or other means to calculate the acceleration of the moving object
5.Perform the experiments several times to obtain an average value
6.Record other data if necessary
7.Measure the acceleration directly using the 3-axis Acceleration Altimeter
8.Compare the accelerations obtained by the two methods
Question:
- Compare the acceleration obtained by your designed method with that measured directly by the acceleration sensor. How accurate your result is? What are the sources of error?
- How can you explain the errors occurred? How to improve the sensitivity of your self-made accelerator?
- How can you determine the distance that you have traveled using your results from the experiment?