Impulse

Purpose: In this lab, we explored the new concept of impulse, and used our data to answer the Big Question, "What is the relationship between impulse, force and time?" This lab is connected to our previous collision lab, and we found impulse by going off of our knowledge of momentum.

How?: We started this lab the exact same way we started the last one, except on one side of the track we had a Logger Pro to record the car's velocity and a Force Probe Ring of the other side. We measured the car's velocity before and after the collision, and also measured the area of the dip in the "Force vs. Time" graph.

Graph: We used the velocity we collected to help us calculate momentum, "P".
We needed to find the momentum before and after the collision to find impulse, "J".
Impulse=ΔP
J=Pf - Pi

Conclusion: The area of the dip in our "Force vs. Time" graph was about -0.3613.
Our calculated impulse was -0.301. The impulse is about equal to the area. This is an example of Newton's Third Law of Motion--"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." The concept of impulse is the relationship between force, time and momentum.

Real World: This lab relates to the popular middle school game, "Wall Ball." When a kid hits the ball against the wall, it comes back to the other player with an equal amount of force and momentum.