This week in class we focused on fine tuning our plan. After some conversation and jokes we decided on going with the classical collision between toy cars on a track.
Tools:
-2 Toy cars
-1 vertical track
– Sensors to record the velocity
-nxt software and computer
What we are going to do:
We are going to have two motion sensors on both ends of the track. One of the toy cars will be at a standstill at the middle of the track. We will weigh the cars because we need the mass along with the velocity of the carts to calculate the momentum (remember p = mv). We will push one car (on the far side of the track) into the car at the middle of the track. The motion sensors will track the movement of the cars on either sides and record them into the computer. With the recorded velocities we will calculate the momentum. We will run 5 trials.