Tag: Power

Pulley Lab

My partner Jill Swan and I did the pulley lab together. The lab consisted of exploring Newton’s 2nd Law- the law of conservation of energy, velocity and acceleration, and power. We used the Lego Mindstorm robot to see how acceleration changed when mass changed and power was fixed and when power changed and mass was fixed.

Does the acceleration vary with mass? Yes. When we changed the masses- .05 kg, .1 kg, .15 kg, .2 kg, and .25 kg, with the power level left constant at 75, the acceleration decreased. The first graph is a representation of our results. It shows the trend line angled in a downward slope in regards to acceleration vs. mass.

Does the acceleration vary with power level? Yes. When we changed the power level- 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90, with the mass left constant at .1 kg, the acceleration level increased. The second graph is a representation of our results. It shows the trend line angled in an upward slope in regards to power vs. acceleration.

Is the linear trend line as expected? Yes. The linear trend line reflected what I expected the results to be based on the lecture and understanding the formula F=ma.

Screen Shot 2015-10-01 at 10.37.35 PM

Screen Shot 2015-10-01 at 10.37.52 PM Screen Shot 2015-10-01 at 10.38.09 PM

 

17.5 cm- to bottom of pulley

9 cm- height of weights

 

Lego Mindstorm Lab Activity #2

My teammate, Jill Swan, and I experimented with three power settings for the motors, keeping both motors the same. We did three trials per power setting. The results are as follows:

Wheel Diameter= .055 m    Circumference= .1728 m

Results

The experiments show that the more power the motors had, the farther the robots went. In order to make a full rotation, the power needs to be over 55, as our experiments show that 55 just slightly not enough for an entire 360 degree rotation. The margin of error varied across all the studies anywhere from less than a percent to 12% error with no definitive link between the variation of results. The experience was helpful to reinforce the concepts of distance, velocity, and dealing with diameter, radius, and circumference from the lecture. It also was beneficial in learning to work with the robots and the computer software associated with them.