Required practical 7: acceleration

• Investigating the acceleration of an object


  1. Hold the toy car at the starting point

  2. Let go of the car

  3. Record the time the car passes each distance marker

  4. Repeat the experiment several times with decreasing mass on the end of the string

  5. Keep the overall mass of the object the same
• Acceleration of the object

  Proportional to the force applied
• Force applied


  Weight of the mass on the end of the string
• Acceleration of the object

  Proportional to the mass on the end of the string
• Investigating how varying the mass of the object affects the acceleration produced by a constant force

  1. Keep the force constant using a 100 gram mass

  2. Attach a mass to the toy car

  3. Repeat the experiment increasing the mass attached to the toy car
• Acceleration of the object

  Inversely proportional to the mass of the object