Fan Cart Lab

Purpose: The purpose of this lab was to answer the Big Question, "What is the relationship between mass, force and acceleration?"We answered this question throughout our let when we tested the acceleration of each fan cart mass.

How?: In this lab, we started by measuring the mass of fan cart (300 g). Then we recored the acceleration of the fan cart without any added mass, and recorded our data in the Time vs. Velocity graph by measuring the slope. We then repeated this many times, each time with a different mass. We started to notice that the slope of the line in our graph changed each time.

Graph: These two graphs represent the different accelerations of the fan cart. The first one, represents the fan cart's initial  acceleration without any added mass (300 g). The second graph is the fan cart's acceleration with the greatest amount of mass added (1300 g).

Conclusion: Based on our data, we concluded that there is an inverse relationship between acceleration and mass. As mass increases, acceleration decreases, and vice versa. The equation used to represent this would be F=m • a
This lab is related to Newton;s Second Law of Motion.

Real World: This lab relates to pushing a shopping cart at the grocery store. When you first walk in to the grocery store and grab an empty cart, it is easy to push because there is nothing inside. The force you exert would make the cart accelerate faster because of its low mass. However, after you are done shopping, the cart becomes harder to push because you have put many items inside. If you exert the same amount of force onto the full cart as you did to the empty cart, it would accelerate slower because of its higher mass.