Aim: Does mass of marble affect the distance the car goes?
Introduction: Some factors that affect this aim is friction because it is hard to control it. the motion is affected by this because it slows down the car.
Hypothesis: Our hypothesis was that the greater the mass of the marble, the further it pushed the car away
Independent variable: Marbles
Dependent variable: Distance car goes
Controls: type of car, same surface, same marbles, same inclination
Material:
-Car
-Marbles (4 of different weight)
-2 meter sticks
-6 books
-Tape
-Plastic cup
-Desk
Procedure:
1. Place the first marble in the ramp
2. let it roll down the ramp.
3. Record the results on data table. Repeat these steps 2 more times.
4. get the second marble, and repeat steps 1-3.
5. get the third marble and repeat steps 1-3.
6. get the fourth marble and repeat step 1-3
7. Find the averages and record them on the table
| Marble | Mass (g) | Trial | Distance traveled (cm) | Avg, Distance traveled (cm) |
| 1 | 1 | 41 | ||
| 17.880 | 2 | 39 | 41.16 | |
| 3 | 43.5 | |||
| 2 | 1 | 4 | ||
| 9.682 | 2 | 4 | 4.66 | |
| 3 | 6 | |||
| 3 | 1 | 42 | ||
| 28.390 | 2 | 51 | 44.33 | |
| 3 | 40 | |||
| 4 | 1 | 19 | ||
| 21.750 | 2 | 13 | 38.33 | |
| 3 | 19 |
Observations: We think that we should have conducted more trials. Also, we think that we might have changed the force applied to the ball in the trials. Also, we noticed that the mass did not affect the distance.
Conclusion: After conducting the experiment we concluded that our hypothesis was somewhat right. From our results, we saw that the mass affected, but not all times. As you can see on the table, the fourth ball has more mass than the first ball, but the first ball went further. Looking back to our aim, we did discover that mass affects distance, but not exactly the way we inferred. We inferred that because if two marbles are in the same ramp and they are released, the one that has more mass will arrive first. From what we learned about momentum, our results would be marked as inaccurate because of the results we got for ball one and ball four.
Sources of error:
1. Scale: the scale could have been inaccurate.
2. Force: We could have changed the force applied to the ball when releasing it at the ramp.
3. Distance: We could have measured the distance wrong
Evaluation:
I think that to solve the first source of error (scale), we could have resetted the scale and tried on another one to see if it matched. For the second one, it is hard to control but we could have used the same person throughout the experiment. Lastly, we could have double-checked the distance to see if we recorded right.
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