Go! Motion: Station 7: Position, Velocity and Acceleration

Part I: About the Station

• Station 7: Position, Velocity and Acceleration
• Group members-Megan, Erik, Tony, Abram, Grant, & Brittany
• This station was to collect data (position, velocity, and acceleration) on a car made of legos going down 3 different ramps.
• We collected the position, velocity, and acceleration of the car on all three ramps. We did this by using a technology called Go!Motion. It's a program that has a sensor that connects to the computer. Sensor has a lens that tracks the object as it travels. It then processes the data and shows a graph for each thing.

• Part 2:
• The graphs all relate in a linear fashion as the velocity graph shows the slopes of the position graph and the acceleration shows both the slopes of the velocity graph and the concavity of the position graph. Though each of the graph differs, it is due to the degree and angles of the ramps. (relating to the position) and the derivatives of the following graphs will follow accordingly. The car was a constant. Calculus proves why theses things are related in terms of rates.
• The following pictures show the cars, the differing ramps, and the differing graphs of position, acceleration, and velocity.
  

Here is our car.

Here is our first ramp, one board, two blocks.

Here is the 2nd ramp, one board, two blocks, one bag of rocks.

Here is our 3rd ramp, one board, one block.

Position 1, Ramp 1

Velocity 1, Ramp 1

Acceleration 1, Ramp 1

Position 2, Ramp 2

Velocity 2

Acceleration 2, Ramp 2

Position 3, Ramp 3

Velocity 3, Ramp 3

Acceleration 3, Ramp 3

Part III: What did you think?

• Answer the following questions individually:
  • As a student, this is a fun, hands-on in-class activity that allows one to play with legos while applying math and science. As a teacher its a good activity for students to do to apply and test both Math and science skills learned in the classroom.
  • As a student I did not like how long this activity was as well as using Go-Motion was confusing and caused us problems. As a teacher it could be hard to control the class and monitor who did what.
    
  • Nothing was surprising, but it was interesting how the graphs differed from each other.
• Questions&Answers:
  • The linear relationship in this case is really hard to read due to the extreme variations within the graphs and due to error.
    
  • The aerodynamics of the car and the height and angles of the ramp affected the different outcomes in the graphs.
  • The position affects the velocity and acceleration because as the GOMotion captured and record, and processed the numbers. Note: I am not a science major so I cannot really read the graphs accurately
    
  • Math can be used to show the differences amongst the graphs and if they needed to be read mathematically and record data.
• My Contributions: I took all the pictures, uploaded them online, and created the google doc for everyone to access and share the information!