September 22, 2023

Physics 30, Period 5

Physics 30 - Graphing Motion Lab Report

Purpose
To explore the connection between the observed motion of an object, the position-time and
velocity-time and acceleration-time graphs that describe the motion of the object and the
kinematics equations which also describe the object's motion. This will be done by analyzing the
object’s motion through the tracker app.

Theory

Displacement is a vector that represents the shortest distance between two points. It is basically
the total change in position of an object from its initial position. In this experiment, we will be
creating a displacement-time graph to track an object’s position in relation to how much time
has passed. The y-axis will represent the total displacement, and the x-axis will represent the
independent variable, time.

Velocity can be defined as the change in displacement over time, or . We can see from
this equation that displacement and velocity are inherently related, and that altering one will
have an effect on the other. Similarly, we will be using velocity-time graphs to track an object’s
velocity in relation to time. The y-axis will represent the current velocity, and the x-axis will
represent the moment in time.

Average velocity is calculated over a finite time period and is the total displacement divided by
the total time. Instantaneous velocity, on the other hand, is the velocity at a single moment in
time

Acceleration can be defined as the change in velocity over time, or . This equation also
shows the connection between acceleration and velocity, and by extension, displacement as
well. Just like displacement and velocity, this experiment requires the use of acceleration-time
graphs to track the object’s acceleration with respect to time. The y-axis will represent the
current acceleration and the x-axis will represent time.

Deceleration is the rate at which an object slows down or reduces its speed. It's the opposite of
acceleration and is measured in units like meters per second squared (m/s²).
The two kinematic equations used in this lab:

1.
This equation is very similar to a first-degree polynomial, , with and
. Additionally, the A and B values will correspond to their respective coefficients
and constants. As such, the general structure of a linear polynomial will apply to this
equation too. The graph will be a straight line that passes through (0, ), has a slope of
, and has a domain that cannot be negative. This implies that if the acceleration is
negative, the velocity will decrease over time and that if the acceleration is positive, the
acceleration will increase over time.

2.
This equation is very similar to a second-degree polynomial, , with
and . Additionally, the A and B values will correspond to their respective
coefficients, with . As such, the general structure of a quadratic polynomial will
apply to this equation too. The graph will be a parabolic curve that passes through (0, 0),
opens depending on the sign of , and has a domain that cannot be negative. This
implies that the displacement will decrease parabolically if the acceleration is negative,
the displacement will increase parabolically if the acceleration is positive, and the
displacement will change linearly with a slope if the acceleration is 0.

These will be the only kinematic equations used in this lab since they are structured in such a
way that matches the lines of best fit of the motion graphs. Additionally, they have the y-
variables of the motion graphs nicely isolated on one side, other than the acceleration-time
graph.

The formula for error calculations:

Materials
- 1 model crash cart
- 1-metre ruler stick
- 2 cameras/phones, one for taking the video of the cart, and one for taking a photo of the
lab setup
- 1 computer
- Flat floor with no inclination
Procedure

1. Place the ruler on a flat surface and the camera such that it can record the entire motion
of the crash cart until it stops. Make sure that the camera or the ruler does not move.
2. Place the cart at one end of the ruler and make sure that the camera can still get it.
3. Begin recording the motion of the cart
4. Push the cart gently if you push it too hard it is going to go further than what the camera
can capture. Also, make sure it does not cross the 1-metre scale
5. Once the crash cart stops moving stop recording
6. Import this video to the tracker software and analyze the different types of graphs for the
motion of the crash cart

Observations and Data

When we push the car its acceleration increases as we are using force to push the car. The
acceleration increases at an almost constant rate as the force we applied was not exactly
constant. Since acceleration is increasing, the crash cart gains speed. But the instant we stop
pushing the car and let it go the acceleration starts reducing consistently as the only other force
acting on the body is friction that is acting in the opposite direction. Therefore the velocity starts
decreasing at a constant rate until it eventually stops.
Analysis of data
Looking at the four kinematic formulas and the equations of the lines of best fit, we can draw
similarities between their terms.

Displacement-Time Graph
Line of best fit: x = 0.0782t 2- 0.548t + 0.027

This displacement-time graph is similar to my observations of the cart’s motion. From rest, it
accelerates rapidly and then its velocity constantly reduces as it goes away from its starting
point until it eventually stops moving. This is seen in the parabolic line of the best fit of the data
points as it is initially flat but as soon as acceleration is applied to it it starts to move at a
constant rate, therefore, the graph starts to slope downwards at a constant as it covers distance
at a constant rate but then as it goes away from its initial position it loses velocity and starts to
cover less distance as it goes thus making the graph flatter in the last part until it eventually
stops moving at all and makes the graph completely flat. The slope of the line connecting the
first and last point of this graph represents the average velocity of this motion and the slope of a
relatively straight section in this graph represents the instantaneous velocity at that point.

Since there was a slight error while placing the start point of the crash cart on tracker and also
due to the point being a best-fit point and not the actual start point the displacement-time graph
has the object starting at around -0.027cm, as represented by the third term in the line of best
fit. However, this does not affect the velocity time graph nor the acceleration time graph, since
those two only describe the change in displacement and velocity respectively. Consequently,
this third term may be omitted during further analysis.
The line of best fit that describes the total change in x as a function of time,

x = 0.0782t 2- 0.548t + 0.027

shares the same structure as a standard quadratic polynomial,

with A, B, and C representing their respective coefficients. Since the third term represents the
initial displacement, it can be omitted and still describe the overall change in the position of the
crash cart. Through this, the best-fit line turns into,

x = 0.0782t 2- 0.548t

which is similar to the second kinematic formula,

Once we rearrange the formula into,

The connection between the kinematic formula and the best-fit equation becomes clear. We see
that

Simplifying further,

Looking at the first equation, we see that A, or 0.0782, is equal to half of the acceleration
variable. Therefore, the cart’s velocity should be changing at a rate equal to 2 times A, or
0.1564m/ s2

The second equation is straightforward. B is equal to the initial velocity of the crash cart which is
-0.548m/s. The reason it is not 0m/s though we had held it in place before recording is because
of maybe three reasons. Firstly v = d/t, so if t = 0 then we cannot divide d by it. That’s why we
do not get a value for v for 0s. So it basically calculates the initial velocity from after 0s and in
our video, the cart actually moves a tiny bit forward in this short amount of time and therefore
the initial velocity is not 0. Also though our cart moved a tiny bit the initial velocity we got from
this equation is pretty huge because we have to remember that this is not the actual point this is
just the best fit point. And thirdly we might have made a small error while using the tracker app.

Velocity-Time Graph
Line of best fit: v = 0.144t-0.52

The velocity-time graph exhibits a less consistent trend than the displacement-time graph.
Numerous data points are clearly either above or below the line of greatest fit. So why is the
initial part of the graph so off from the best-fit line? This is because when we were exerting force
on the cart while pushing it it was accelerating and since both the velocity and the acceleration
were acting in the same direction the graph was going downwards that is it was gaining speed.
But as
soon as we stopped pushing the cart friction was the only other force that was acting on it and
since it was acting in the opposite direction it started to slow the cart. This explains why from
that point onwards the graph started to go up. But we could ignore the part of the graph before
0.2s as we were only supposed to observe the motion of the object after it was released and not
when it was getting pushed as a part of our experiment. This would give us a more accurate
slope as from 0.2s the graph only goes up as the force of friction is the only force acting on the
object. Since we have included the time before 0.2s in the displacement graph, we are going to
include it here as well but we have to remember that this will significantly increase the line of
best fit’s error margin. The other points too are not too consistent but this cannot be true as we
did see the velocity go consistently down. But this is shown in the best-fit line where the slope is
uniform.
The line of best fit for the cart’s velocity at a given point after a given amount of time is,

v = 0.144t-0.52.

The structure of this equation is identical to that of the formula for the final velocity, or

We can establish a relationship between the coefficients and the variables since both of these
equations provide the velocity of an object over time. So we get,

From this, we see that the coefficients, A and B, denote acceleration and initial velocity
respectively. The coefficient A represents a uniform acceleration of 0.144m/ s2, and B represents
an initial velocity of -0.52m/s. As stated previously, in the displacement time graph part the initial
velocity value is not accurate.

Acceleration-Time Graph
Line of best fit: a = 0.18t - 0.3
The acceleration time graph exhibits the greatest degree of irregularity among the three motion
graphs. The line of best fit has a huge margin of error and the data points differ significantly
from one another. This contradicts our observation as the cart initially did accelerate a little
unevenly as our push was not consistent all the way through but after letting the cart free it
decelerates at a constant rate due to friction but in this graph, we see that it is very uneven.
However, we do see the line of best fit is consistent, the only problem being when we ignore the
initial part of the graph as it is basically jerk which we haven't learnt about it displays an overall
increase of positive acceleration which was not the case as soon as the cart was let go it began
it decelerate.

The line of best fit for acceleration is: a = 0.18t - 0.3

We cannot deal with this equation because for this graph we have jerk at the start of this motion
in the form of the push after which the graph constantly decelerates and there are no kinematic
formulas that incorporates jerk. And even if we ignore the initial part of the graph where the
acceleration increases we cannot relate that graph’s best-fit equation to any kinematic formula.
Also, the error margin in this graph is too huge.

Further Analysis

Since we got 2 values for the initial velocity and for the acceleration, we will be finding the
average.

0.144+ 0.156
Average Acceleration = = 0.15m/ s2
2
−0.548−0.52
Average Initial Velocity = = -0.534m/s = -0.53m/s
2

Conclusion

With this lab, we were able to investigate the relationships between the three graphs of motion
and how their lines of best fit corresponded to the known kinematic formulae. We were able to
obtain the acceleration of the crash cart, 0.15m/ s2, and the initial velocity of the crash cart, –
0.53m/s, from the coefficients of the best fit lines of both the displacement time graph and the
velocity-time graph. The acceleration value seems to be fairly accurate though its graph was a
bit messed up as all the points in the graph were irregular and it was displaying overall
acceleration when in the video we observed constant deceleration. The initial velocity value too
contradicts our observation of the motion of the cart as in the video we had held the cart in place
initially so ideally it is supposed to have a value of 0m/s but it is not the case here.

Sources of error

1. Frame rate
 This experiment's video was captured with a phone that could record at 30 frames per
second. As a result, we were only able to monitor the cart thirty times every second. The
displacement time graph was not significantly affected by this (because it still displayed
an appealing parabolic curve), but the velocity time graph and the acceleration time
graph both showed small irregularities. This is most likely because when the other
graphs are calculated, the little inaccuracies in the displacement time graph are
amplified. So if we used a 60 fps camera for 3.4s of our video we would be able to
capture 204 frames(3.4*60) while the 30 fps camera we used only captures 102 frames.
The distance covered per frame for the 60 fps when the object covered a total distance
of 0.933cm camera would approximately be equal to 0.933 cm / 204 frames ≈ 0.0045735
cm/frame while for the 30 fps camera, it would be 0.933 cm / 102 frames ≈ 0.0091373
cm/frame. So, the deviation in the distance the toy car covers per frame between the 60 fps
camera and the 30 fps camera is approximately 0.0045638 cm/frame. This represents the
difference in spatial resolution between the two frame rates. A higher frame rate (60 fps) captures
smaller motion increments per frame, resulting in less deviation in distance per frame compared
to a lower frame rate (30 fps). To improve this, we could use a better device that can
record in a higher frame rate. This would further smooth out the motion graphs of the
object and make the best-fit lines more accurate, as the time gaps between data points
would become smaller.

2. Motion Blur
The video included motion blur since the crash cart was moving quickly. This made it
difficult to place the data points, particularly towards the end of the recording. This effect
caused areas of the cart to stretch and blur. This error becomes compounded in the
calculations for the velocity and acceleration-time graphs, which could explain a large
portion of their inconsistencies. Motion Blur distance = 0.53 m/s × (1/30 s/frame) =
0.01767 meters/frame. Motion blur due to deceleration = (0.005 m/s/frame) × (1/30
s/frame) = 0.0001667 meters/frame. Total Motion Blur = 0.01767 meters/frame +
0.0001667 meters/frame = 0.0178367 meters/frame. This represents the error in
capturing the object's position due to motion blur. This discrepancy in position can be
reduced by recording with a better camera with a higher ISO and faster shutter speed.

3. Line of best fit error margins

The A, B, and C values in the lines of best fit on the Tracker app each have error
margins associated with them. While the predicted values are given, the actual values
can range anywhere between the error margin. These errors have a large impact on the
calculations in the analysis section, since the values in the lines of best fit directly
correspond to those in the kinematic formulae such as with initial velocity and
acceleration. While some error margins are small the largest is the error margin relative
to the predicted values of the B coefficient of the line of best fit for the acceleration-time
graph which is ± 0.1. So if we calculate the error we get,
 |−o .2−(−.04)
−0.3 |
×100 = 66%

As we can see this error is pretty large and this just might the magnified error of our
previous graphs. And like the other 2 sources a camera with a better resolution might
reduce the error.

4. Metre Stick Notches

The metre stick we used only displayed values down to millimetres, so the calibration stick used
to measure length has an error margin of ± 0.0005m. This means that the y-error for the points

on the displacement time graph is equal to , which is

very low. Since the other graphs of motion rely on the displacement-time graphs for their
computations, the impact of this inaccuracy is magnified. Therefore, to obtain a better degree of
precision, use a measuring instrument with more notches that go to a smaller subdivision of
length. Furthermore, while less dramatically, adopting a longer calibration stick would also
reduce this mistake.