Lab Air Tracks Period 6 Physics .pdf - Lab- Conservation...

Lab- Conservation of Mechanical Energy, Air Tracks
Introduction
The purpose of the lab is to determine if the mechanical energy is conserved
for a falling object, and to observe the work-energy theorem in action. The law of
conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only
converted from one form of energy to another. This means that a system always has
the same amount of energy, unless it's added from the outside. The work-energy
theorem states that the work done by the sum of all forces acting on an object is
equal to the change in the object's kinetic energy.
We pushed the cart wheel while the air track was on and tied the string to the
cart and a mass. We recorded the weight of the mass. We then took measurements of
the length of the index card and allowed the mass to fall exactly 6 inches before
catching it. For the hanging mass, we took five trials with varying mass and recorded
the data as shown in Table 1. In this experimental setup, a hanging mass pulls the cart
as shown in Figure1. We use the time and the length of the card to determine the
cart’s velocity as it passes through a photogate using the formula v=d/t. From this we