Again we were working with our Lego robots in class but this time they looked a little bit different (see picture below).

During this experiment, we were using our robot mechanisms to lift up a set of weights. The key things to know about this experiment is that the force was controlled by the robots. This is what enabled them to lift the mass which was the weights. Additionally, we found after numerous tests that as the mass or the weights increased the acceleration, or the time it took them to reach the top of the pulley system decreased.

We ran a test for all of the different weights. The different weights were what we had to plug into the labview panel measured in kilograms. After each of the tests were run the data was computed for us by the program. After all of the tests we were able to import all of this data into an excel spreadsheet. Look below to see the data:

As you can see we ran 12 separate tests. The data helped us to discover the trend that was mentioned before, how as the mass of the weights increased the acceleration decreased. We created a graph to show this relationship:

The next and final step in the lab was to calculate the potential energy for each of the tests. The formula we were given for potential energy is as follows:

mgh (potential energy)=m(mass) x a(acceleration) x h(height)

The mass was always 9.8m

and the height of the pulley system was always .22m

Therefore for example, for test 1 the mass of the weights was equal to .25kg so we computed:

.25kg x 9.8m x .22m

and came out with .539 being the potential energy for this test.