This lab involved using the Lego Mindstorm in a new and innovative way. For this lab only the wheel portion of the car was used. The actual wheel was tied to a string that was fed through a pulley system and attached to a few weights on the other side. We had to use one force three times and change the amount of weight on the other side of the pulley for each trial. Then we had to change the amount of force for the next three trials and keep the weight constant. For each trial we had to calculate the acceleration. For the first trial set we used the force of 75 Newtons and we changed the mass to .2Kg, .1 Kg, and .16 Kg. For the second set of trials we used the forces of 50 Newtons, 100 Newtons, and 150 Newtons and kept the weight constant at .2Kg. Here are our results for the acceleration of each trial:

force(N) mass (Kg)  accel(m/s^2)  Potential energy

Here are some graphs:

Mass and Acceleration

Force and Acceleration

This lab was a lot different but also a good deal of fun. It was simple and challenging. The lab was challenging because we had to set up and be fluent in the language Lego Mindstorm and Labview, and also we had to be able to calculate acceleration which took a lot of unit conversion and math skill (I’m not great at either one of those things). But it was simple because we just had to watch and measure heights and speeds of some weights being raised in the air with a pulley.