Gravity is an interesting topic and function that is in our daily lives. Without gravity, we would not be able to walk, stand, run, do any of the things we are able to do now on earth. Gravity is what allows us to stay on land without floating upwards or as i have been told “float upwards and end up in china”. There are different levels of gravitational force within our planet earth. Gravity and its laws were developed by a man named Newton. He discovered gravity and came up with laws that would help understand why and how it is that gravity and forces work. Newton’s first law is named inertia. Meaning an object that is at rest will remain at rest, and an object that is moving will continue to move unless it is disturbed by something. Newton’s second law consists of Force which is measured as the product of mass and acceleration (mass measured in kilograms, and acceleration is measured in Meters per seconds squared).
During class we were conducting an experiment, which exposed us to the laws of Newton. We were given a Lego robot, with a ruler measured in centimeters that had to be converted in meters, and weights that were measured in grams. The Lego robot had a tower that held a string with a whole where we can hook the weights. The computer system allowed us to adjust the power of our desire and also allowed us to adjust the mass. We did a total of 10 trials throughout the experiment. One set, we were instructed to remain the mass constant which made the acceleration change with the adjustment of power or (force). During our second set, our power or (force) remained constant, we had to adjust the mass for every trial and the acceleration was determined.
At the beginning of the experiment, we were supposed to measure the height of the bottom of the robot to the pully. The height of the robot measured 37 centimeters, (.37 meters). With the product of height, acceleration gravity, and mass, we were able to figure out the potential energy for each trial.
The goal of this experiment is to study Newton’s second law. What i learned is that with the power decreasing,the acceleration also decreases. With the mass increasing, and power remaining constant, the acceleration increases as well.
Below i have inserted a picture of my calculations throughout the project with Legos. There is two sets of calculations: first calculations have a constant mass, and an adjusted power. The second set has a constant power of 75, and an adjusted mass for every trial. At the end, the potential energy (PE) was calculated with the height measurement.