Diya Saha

Lab I, Problem 5 and 8: Acceleration and The Effect of Initial Velocity on It on

Different Planes of Motion

Diya Saha

October 4th, 2017
 Physics 1301W, Professor: N. Perkins, TA: A. West

Abstract

Rollercoaster tracks are made of different combinations of loop, straight, vertical and inclined
tracks. As a rollercoaster designer I have to choose between a vertical or an inclined track to add
to my rollercoaster ride. To make the ride a thrilling experience, the track chosen should provide
the highest final velocity to the rollercoaster. Hence, I model two different types of tracks
(inclined and vertical) to test which track would end up with the highest final velocity. Using the
video analysis, I produced velocity-time graphs for each type of track and compare the final
velocities (gathered from the last time value of my data set). The graphs verify that the
acceleration stays constant in both the tracks, however the value of acceleration is much higher
in the vertical plane and hence provides the highest final velocity of 4.93 ms-1 between the two
tracks. Hence, adding a vertical track in the rollercoaster would provide the best experience to
the riders.

Introduction

As a rollercoaster designer, I want to build a track that would provide the most thrilling
experience for the riders, and to do that I need to make sure the track provides the maximum
final velocity. The track can be built in two ways: an inclined track or a vertical track. So which
track would provide the highest final velocity to the rollercoaster? However, I also want to test if
an initial velocity would affect the final speed of the rollercoaster. Hence I will test the final
velocities of a rollercoaster going down an inclined and vertical track from rest and with an
initial push to see which combination would provide the most thrilling experience.
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Predictions

Regardless of the initial velocity (increases or decreases), the acceleration will stay constant for
both the tracks because on an inclined plane the ratio of the distance traveled to the square of the
amount of time needed to travel that distance is constant; and on a vertical track acceleration is
constant due to gravity. However, I believe the magnitude of the acceleration on the vertical
track will be greater than the magnitude of acceleration on the inclined track. This is because the
acceleration on the vertical track will be only due to gravity (figure 2), but the acceleration on the
inclined track will be gsin (figure 1) which is smaller than g.

100 cm a
g(sin)

g
g(cos)

Figure 1 – The setup for experiment 1 Figure 2 - The setup for experiment 2

I also predict the final velocity of both the inclined and vertical track will be highest with the
motions with an initial push because it would be able to reach a higher final velocity with the
same acceleration rather than starting from 0 (rest). Moreover, the ideal combination to give the
highest final velocity would be the one of the vertical plane with an initial push because the
vertical plane would provide a higher acceleration value. I expect the equations) of the graphs for
inclined planes with initial velocity to be in the form: 𝑣𝑓 = 𝑣𝑖 + 𝑔𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃(𝑡)

Procedure

The methodology was split into two parts where the first part was analyzing motion down the
inclined plane and the second part was analyzing motion down the vertical track. For the first
part, the camera was located 113 cm away from the plane of the motion but for the second part
held vertically 156 cm away because it had to be placed further away to fit the vertical ruler in
the screen. The inclined track was placed at angle of 4.52 degrees (calculations 1) from the table-
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top. This was calculated using trigonometry. (The hypotenuse, and the opposite side were
measured)

212.2 cm
16.7 cm

Hypotenuse = 212.2 cm ± 0.1 cm

Opposite side = 16.7 cm ± 0.1 cm
16.7
𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃 =
212.2
16.7
∴ 𝜃 = arcsin = 4.52
212.2

0.1 2 0.1 2
The uncertainty for the angle: |4.52|√(16.7) + (212.2) = 0.027

Therefore, the angle was 4.52 ± 0.027

On the inclined plane I took two types of measurements: first set of data is for the motion from
rest and the second with an initial velocity (with a push). For the second part, we placed a ruler
against the wall and also took two types of measurements: dropped balls from rest and with an
initial push and recorded the videos. Three trials had been measured for each measurement for
both the parts, so in total twelve sets of data were collected which allowed me to calculate the
average velocities and the uncertainty present in the data. The original plan for part 2 (vertical
track) was to plot the points on logger pro from the starting point of the ruler, however we
noticed that while we were trying to push the ball (to produce some initial velocity), the ball
wasn’t dropping from exactly from the starting point which would create a random error in data.
Therefore, we decided a point (70 cm mark only for the ones with push) on the ruler from where
we would start recording the data points. When analyzing the data for the motion in a vertical
track we decided to not take into account the velocity in the x direction (from the data analysis
from the video on logger pro) because they hardly had any deviations (straight line) and the ones
that did have deviations we deleted, and didn’t take into account in our experiment. Hand
measurements would create more chances of random errors hence we decided to use video
analysis instead where it would negate errors such as the reaction time for starting and stopping
the stopwatch, errors of interpreting when the cart and started and finished its journey. With the
video analysis we were able to be more accurate as we could see the exact position of cart/ball in
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shorter time intervals, and I was also able to record our measurements to a higher degree of
accuracy as time data had 4 decimal places (able to record in milliseconds) which is much more
than the 1 decimal place of time we could record using hand measurements.
Data

Graph 1 – Inclined track, starting from rest

Graph 2 – Inclined track, starting with push

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Graph 3 – Vertical track, starting from rest

Sample Data Table (only part of the data):

Time (s) ± Velocity (ms-1) Average Velocity (ms- Error in Velocity (ms-1)
1
0.0083 s )
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3
2.8017 -1.1720 -0.9370 -1.2768 -1.1286 0.1699
2.8100 -1.1608 -0.8540 -1.2537 -1.0074 0.1998
2.8183 -1.2003 -0.8594 -1.2424 -1.0299 0.1915

Sample calculations (row 1):

2.5142+1.0644+1.2768
Average velocity = = −1.1286
3

max −𝑚𝑖𝑛 1.2768−0.9370

Error in velocity = = = 0.1699
2 2

Uncertainty in the time is 0.0083 s because the video was recorded in 120 frames per second.
Therefore, the uncertainty would lie in the smallest increment of measurement and that would be
1/120s.
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Graph 4 – Vertical Track, starting with push

Analysis

The final velocities collected from each experiment:

Experiment Final Velocity (ms-1)

Graph 1 1.89
Graph 2 2.50
Graph 3 4.49
Graph 4 4.93

The final velocities were extracted from the graphs at the last value of time in our data set. As
predicted the highest final velocity is for graph 4 which is the motion on a vertical track with an
initial push. The initial pushes are represented by the y-intercepts on the graphs 2 and 4 as at
time 0 they have a velocity value. The reason why graphs 3 and 4 have negative gradients is
because the axis pointing up was set as positive, hence all the values recorded for velocity were
negative. As expected the acceleration was constant for all the experiments, hence the velocity-
time graphs were straight lines graphs.

In order to understand how accurate my tests are, I am going to calculate the percentage error
between the theoretical value of acceleration for each experiment:
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Experiment Theoretical Value of Experiment Value of Percentage Error

acceleration acceleration
Graph 1 77.16 cms-2 84.09 cms-2 8.98%
Graph 2 77.16 cms-2 91.62 cms-2 18.74%
Graph 3 9.81 ms-2 9.243 ms-2 5.68%
Graph 4 9.81 ms-2 9.997 ms-2 2.01%

Sample Calculations (row 1):

Theoretical value: gsin = (9.81)sin4.52 = 77.16 cms-2

Experimental value: The gradient of graph 1
Percentage Error = (77.16-84.09)/77.16 = 8.98%

As predicted, the acceleration was constant for both the tracks and the vertical track had a higher
acceleration value than the inclined plane. The experiment with the highest percentage error was
the motion on an inclined plane with an initial push (graph 2) which indicates that was least
accurate experiment conducted. In general, the experiments conducted on the incline plane were
less accurate than the vertical track ones which could be because they face the friction of the
track and air resistance while in the vertical track the object faces only air resistance. Moreover,
the reason why graph 2 has the highest percentage error is because the trigger that produces the
initial velocity of to the cart. The trigger provided a random jerk to the cart’s motion in the
beginning which could have created a different inertial acceleration. This can be seen in the first
two points in graph 2, where they don’t fit in the best fit line. The steep change in the velocity in
the beginning of the graph indicates the initial velocity and jerk. Another reason why the error
could have been higher for the inclined track experiments could be because we were getting
values of velocity in the y direction as well (because of our errors in selecting the points while
conduction the video analysis). This was a random error which I took into account in my
calculations as we did vector analysis and found the final velocity by: 𝑣𝑓 = √𝑣𝑥 2 + 𝑣𝑦 2
A problem I faced while marking points while video analysis, was the distortion of the video
frame by frame. The video resolution (720p) limited the accuracy of the point making because
the cart was blurry and we had to use our best estimate for making the points.

Conclusion

A vertical track with an initial velocity would provide the highest final velocity to the
rollercoaster and hence the best experience for the riders. The least accurate experiments were
the ones on an inclined track mostly because of the friction and the distortion of the video
recorded. Next time when repeating this experiment, I’d choose a better resolution like 1080p to
record the video. To decrease the effects of friction on the experiment, maybe the track could
have been lubricated before letting the carts run. The initial velocities do not affect the
acceleration however it does effect the final velocity. Rollercoasters however cannot have a
vertical track for a long period of time because too much of high speed can cause some riders to
be uncomfortable.