• Join over 1.2 million students every month
• Accelerate your learning by 29%
• Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month
Page
1. 1
1
2. 2
2
3. 3
3
4. 4
4
5. 5
5
6. 6
6
7. 7
7
8. 8
8
9. 9
9
10. 10
10
11. 11
11
12. 12
12
13. 13
13
14. 14
14

# Investigating the relationship between the speed of a model car and its stopping distance.

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Matthew Richards        5L        Mr Moncaster

Investigating the relationship between the speed of a model car and its stopping distance

Introduction

I am going to investigate the stopping distance of a model car against its speed. To investigate this relationship I will be rolling a model car down a ramp, set at different heights, measuring the speed and stopping distance for each run then averaging these results.

Predictions

The faster the model car is travelling the greater the stopping distance of the car will be.

The main reason for this is friction, there are other factors, such as air resistance, but it is very difficult for us to measure this on such a small scale so we will dismiss the possibility of the car being slowed down by this factor. Friction is the force that opposes the motion between two surfaces in contact with another.

You may be wondering how I have come about this prediction, well using scientific knowledge and my general knowledge this is the conclusion I have come to. I think it is best if I use an example to explain; taking a real car as this example, the Highway Code gives us the typical stopping distances of a car travelling at significant speeds (i.e. 20mph, 30mph, 40mph etc):

20mph        12m

30mph                 23m

40mph                         36m

50mph                                53m

60mph                                         73m

70mph                                                 96m

(This is not to scale)

This diagram includes the thinking distance of the driver car but as a human is not driving my model car this can be removed and we are left with this raw data:

 Speed (mph) Stopping Distance (m) Speed2 20 6 400 30 14 900 40 24 1600 50 38 2500 60 55 3600 70 75 4900

(I have put speed2 on in an extra column for another prediction that I will make and explain later on in the coursework.)

Middle

In total I have 10 blocks each of equal height, which gives me 10 different heights to release the car from. At each of these heights I will take 3 different readings. Each height will have 6 readings in total, the 3 different speeds and the 3 different stopping distances, it is possible for us to workout the average speed and distance for each height thus giving us an average speed and distance for each height. My simple results table would, therefore look

something like this:

(Remember 1 block is 1 cm high)

 Height Speed Distance 1 Block 0.52m/s 25 cm 1 Block 0.49 m/s 24 cm 1 Block 0.51 m/s 23 cm Average 0.51 m/s 24 cm 2 Blocks 0.68 m/s 41 cm 2 Blocks 0.70 m/s 42 cm 2 Blocks 10.2 m/s 39 cm Average 0.69 m/s 40.7 cm

A Fair Test?

There are a few variables in this test that need to be controlled / kept the same, we need to use the same:

• Car, (this means there will be the same amount of friction acting on the desk each time as every car would have different amounts of friction acting on it as it moves.
• Work Surface / Desk, (this is varnished wood, with dents and holes in its surface)
• Light Gate,
• Electronic Timer
• Ramp,
• Blocks.

If we were to change any of these then we would make the test unfair.

Safety

There are few dangers in this experiment, the only real danger that I can foresee is the main electricity that is used to power the light gate and electronic timer but the room is fitted with a RCD that would isolate the circuit in the room if anything was to go wrong, thus making the room safe. We also need to ensure that all

Conclusion

My evidence supports my conclusion, that as the speed increases so does the stopping distance of the model car and that the stopping distance is proportional to the velocity squared.

Further Work

Apart from the obvious thing we could do, that is to take more readings to a higher degree of accuracy there are other things that we could investigate in the experiment, such as adding more predictions to prove / disprove. We could also do the experiment on a much larger scale with real cars to take an example or we could increase the weight of the car for each different set of runs; this would work by running a car of say 50g down the run at 2 blocks high then running a car of say 100g down the same ramp again at 2 blocks high. This would give us more data to work from and would allow us to create more detailed predictions such as:

As the mass of the car increases so do the stopping distances.

Again we could look at the relationship between the two results and I would be able to gather and form more complicated results from them.

Summary

I have found out all the data I have said I will found out in my plan and I have noticed, investigated and described certain patterns and predictions that I have made. I have processed my own results and I have been able to draw conclusions from them and to notice any trends / patterns that have formed, I have also noticed anomalies and any stray data in my results and I have pointed these out and talked about them and the reasons that I have them.

Over-all I think this has been successful project for me and I have learnt much about the relationships between stopping distances of the car and it’s speed.

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Forces and Motion section.

## Found what you're looking for?

• Start learning 29% faster today
• 150,000+ documents available
• Just £6.99 a month

Not the one? Search for your essay title...
• Join over 1.2 million students every month
• Accelerate your learning by 29%
• Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

# Related GCSE Forces and Motion essays

1. ## Investigation is to see how changing the height of a ramp affects the stopping ...

MASS OF TOY CAR - If the mass of the toy car was increased then obviously this would affect the stopping distance of the toy car due to the frictional forces.

2. ## Factors Affecting the Speed of a Car after Freewheeling down a Slope

When an object is realised from a height, it accelerates down the slope due to its Gravitational potential being converted into Kinetic energy (called Energy Conversion), until it reaches a flat surface when it continues to move (First Law of Motion)

1. ## The Flywheel as an Alternative Energy Storage Device for Electric Vehicles (EV): Problems Associated ...

These particles had broke free from the flywheel disc as result of the fatigue of the wheel, after it has been used for a substantial amount of cycles. However, the effect of this is relatively small to be considered, only costing the flywheel 0.03% of the total energy over a 24 hour period.

2. ## Investigation to Determine how the Height of a slope Affects the Speed of an ...

The reason that we do not measure the length of the slope and time how long the marble takes to travel down it is because we are trying to find out how fast the marble is going at the very bottom of the slope because this is when the marbles

1. ## In this experiment I aim to find out how the force and mass affect ...

The light gate was securely fastened to the clamp stand and the picket fence was attached to the top of the trolley so it wouldn�t fly off and hit somebody while it speeded down the runway. The runway also had rubber grips at the bottom end of the runway, this

2. ## Approximate Stopping Distances

The thinking distance line on the graph is straight; this means that it is a linear relationship. As the speed of the vehicle increases the thinking distance also increases by the same amount for example, if the car is travelling at 20 mph the thinking distance will be 20 ft

1. ## Trolley Speed

Since the potential energy of an object is directly proportional to its height above the zero position, a doubling of the height will result in a doubling of potential energy. A tripling of the height will lead to a tripling of potential energy.

2. ## Stopping Distances

The equation for acceleration is The equation for kinetic energy is KE = 1/2 mv2. This means that the car will be able to accelerate for longer, making the velocity higher and the stopping distance greater. I predict that if I increase the height of the ramp, the further the stopping distance would be.

• Over 160,000 pieces
of student written work
• Annotated by
experienced teachers
• Ideas and feedback to
improve your own work
{"found_math": false, "script_math_tex": 0, "script_math_asciimath": 0, "math_annotations": 0, "math_alttext": 0, "mathml": 0, "mathjax_tag": 0, "mathjax_inline_tex": 0, "mathjax_display_tex": 0, "mathjax_asciimath": 0, "img_math": 0, "codecogs_latex": 0, "wp_latex": 0, "mimetex.cgi": 0, "/images/math/codecogs": 0, "mathtex.cgi": 0, "katex": 0, "math-container": 0, "wp-katex-eq": 0, "align": 0, "equation": 0, "x-ck12": 0, "texerror": 0}