UFPM Challenge

Challenge: Land the mass from the modified Atwood machine on the constant velocity cart. 

First we calculated the mass of the system. Mass of system = 0.6 kg. Then we solved for acceleration. 

a=Fnet/m

a=.5 N/.6 kg

a=0.833 m/s²

We than measured the distance from the starting position of the weight to where it would land on the cart, which was .78 m.

We than solved for time...

x=1/2at^2+Vit

(.78)=1/2(.833)(t)²

t=1.37s

By using: V=Δx/Δt, we calculated where we should position the cart. We calculated the velocity of the cart to be .27 m/s. 

V= .27 m/s, so .27 = (Δx)/(1.37)  

Δx = .37 m 

Once the calculations were finished we decided to test our hypothesis. So we positioned the car .37 meters from the position of where the weight hit the floor. 

We successfully proved our hypothesis correct after a few tests (we had to angle the cart slightly to the left due to its tendency to travel a bit to the right).  Our prediction was quite close and we made it within 5%.