Lab

        The objectives of our lab were to understand the difference between constant velocity and constant acceleration, to effectively use the data for the velocity and acceleration formulas, and to practice and understand visually what types of situations each are used. Another purpose was to understand what the parts of each equation actually mean, instead of plugging in numbers. The difference between constant velocity and constant acceleration deal with time and speed. Constant velocity is when the object covers the same amount of distance in the same amount of time at each interval while constant acceleration is when the object increases speed by the same amount at every interval. To understand this visually, we used a flat surface to roll a marble and mark its place every half second. We observed that the distance between each mark is the same. For acceleration, we placed the same marble on a table that was elevated at one side. We rolled the marble down the table and marked its place every half second.

        From here, we could observe that the distance between each mark grew by the same margin every half second. When we drew pictures of different inclines and imagined the marble rolling down each one- we noticed that the velocity and the acceleration did not always match.  In a hill that is extremely slanted, we observed that while the velocity continually sped up, the acceleration was not increasing as fast as it was at the very top of the hill in comparison to the bottom. If the incline is perfectly slanted, however, the acceleration is constant and the velocity increases.  If there is a rounded top in the incline, then we can observe that both the acceleration and the velocity are increasing.

        What does velocity and acceleration look like on a mathematical level? We learned that constant velocity is found by dividing the distance by the time. We also learned that acceleration is the change in velocity over the change in time. Which makes sense because acceleration speeds up at the same rate over a changing time  frame. However, if you wanted to find how fast an object was accelerating at a constant rate, the formula is velocity equals acceleration multiplied by time. If i were to calculate how far an object will go, I would multiply the acceleration by one half and then multiply that by the square of time. To find the formulas of the data we collected, we simply plugged the data into excel. The x axis stood for the time while the y axis encompassed distance.  I noticed that the graph displaying our first experiment with the marble showed equal distance between each point on the scatter plot. This way, I could literally see what constant velocity looks like. The graph for the second experiment did not have the same distance between the points, however. The distance between the points slowly but gradually increased. I could tell that the increase was about the same amount between every set of points.

        To support our data, we found the equation of the line for each graph. We then converted these equations form numbers to words in order to understand why the numbers represented.  I made the observation, same as in the heart experiment, that if you plug in a time, then you can determine the future trend in the data. lastly, the three most important things that I took form this lab was that acceleration and velocity do not always correlate with each other. I also learned that the slope of an incline determines how the velocity and acceleration act. Thirdly, that if something is accelerating at a constant speed does not mean that there is a constant velocity.