ANALYSIS

Looking at the set up in the given manual, it looks very intimidating and complicated
and knowing that the equipments in the set-up is pricey, but with the help of the lab assistants
and them explaining how to handle the materials and how it works, we didn’t have a hard
time in figuring out what to do and we went directly into the procedures of the experiment.
In performing the experiment, while doing the trials however, the set up was
constantly moved due to the impact of the cart on the track and so, we have to readjust the
photogates to have the exact measurements as stated in the procedure of the experiment, plus
we had to support the dynamics track on the edges to keep it intact and to prevent it from
moving thus, we struggled in gathering data because we had to repeat our trials several times.
Newton’s second law of Motion, also known as the Law of Acceleration refers to
how an object will act if the forces exerted and are acting in it are unstable and not balanced.
Thus, in this experiment there is acceleration observed because of the unbalanced forces in
the objects, which is dependent on the net force applied and the mass of the object. The net
force is the overall force acting on the object after adding all the individual forces and must
be acted upon the object to create acceleration. This law expresses that acceleration is
directly proportional to the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to the
𝐹𝑛𝑒𝑡
mass of the object or it is mathematically expressed as 𝑎 = 𝑚 .
In performing this experiment, we utilize a dynamics cart with a weight hanger, the
dynamics track, two photogates and a digital timer. The photogates will ascertain the
movement and the distance of the cart towards the end of the track while the digital timer
will determine the time travelled.
The first objective of the experiment is to justify and validate the direct
proportionality between acceleration and the net force in the condition that the mass of the
cart is remained constant. The table below shows the assembled information in Part A of the
experiment. (mass of the cart= 0.51734 kg)

Table No. 1 Stationary Mass, Varying Force

Trial Total Hanging Mass Net Force Acceleration (Experimental)
𝑚
1 0.0215 kg 0.2107 N 0.35960 𝑠2
𝑚
2 0.0615 kg 0.6027 N 0.96292 𝑠2
𝑚
3 0.1015 kg 0.9947 N 1.46628 𝑠2

Associating the values of the table above, it is noted that as the mass of the weight
hanger connected by a string on the cart changes due to the weights added plus the pull of the
gravity, the net force varies, also resulting to different accelerations. There is also tension
force acted on the set-up which is because of the presence of the string that connects both the
hanger and the cart.
In the first trial as stated in the manual, we put 20 g to the weight hanger and added
40 g for the following trials and solving the acceleration using the data above, we observed a
constant increase in the acceleration. The data states that as the mass of the weight hanger
increases, the net force escalates as well as the acceleration.
 0.8 0.73314 Looking in the graph, it instantly
0.7 tells that as the net force is increased, so
0.6 does the acceleration, therefore, in this
0.48146
0.5 part of the experiment, based from the
0.4 results, both from the table and the
0.3 0.1798
graph, we can say that acceleration is
0.2 directly proportional to the net force
0.1 when the mass of the object is remained
0 constant.
0 0.5 1 1.5

Figure No. 1 Stationary Mass, Varying Force

The second objective of the second part of the experiment is to find out the if the
mass of the object is inversely proportional to the acceleration in the condition that the net
force is remained constant.

Table No. 2 Stationary Net force, Varying Masses

Trial Mass of Cart + Mass Added Acceleration (Experimental)
𝑚
1 0.51734 kg 0.96408 𝑠2
𝑚
2 0.61734 kg 0.80727 𝑠2
𝑚
3 0.81734 kg 0.62677 𝑠2

In this part, weights are added to the cart and the weight hanger is constant at 100 g.
The cart’s original weight, 0.51734 kg, is used in the first trial and a total of 100 g for the
second and 300 g for the third.
As the mass of the cart is increasing, it is observed that the acceleration is decreasing.
From the cart’s mass on the first trial comparing to the seconds trial, it increases by 0.10000
kg, however looking into the
0.9 acceleration, it is observed that from the
0.8 first to the second trial it drops from
𝑚 𝑚
0.7
0.96408 𝑠2 to 0.80727 𝑠2 . As the mass of
Acceleration (m/s^2)

0.6 the cart increases, the cart slows down.

Figure No. 2 clearly
0.5
demonstrates that as the mass of the cart
0.4
is amplified, the acceleration is reduced.
0.3 Same when the acceleration is enlarged,
0.2 the mass is downsized. So we can infer
0.1 that acceleration is the reverse of mass
0
when net force is constant.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Total Mass (Kg)

Figure No. 2 Stationary Net force, Varying Masses

SAMPLE COMPUTATION

PART A. Stationary Mass, Varying Force

(Using Trial 2)
(Computing Accepted Value)
Fnet = 𝑀𝑚2 𝑔 = (𝑚2 )(𝑔)
𝑚2 𝑔
𝑎=𝑚
1 +𝑚2
𝑚
= (0.0615 kg) (9.8 𝑠2 )
(0.6027 𝑁)
𝑎 = 0.51734 +0.0615
Fnet = 0.6027 N
𝑚
𝑎 = 1.04122 𝑠2

(Computing Experimental Value) (Computing Percent Error)

2𝑠 𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒−𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒

𝑎 = 𝑡2 𝑥 100
𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒

2(0.5 𝑚) 1.04122−0.96292
𝑎 = 1.019072 𝑥 100
0.96292

𝑚
𝑎 = 0.96292 𝑠2 = 8.132 %

PART B. Stationary Net force, Varying Masses

(Using Trial 1)

(Computing Accepted Value) (Computing Percent Error)

𝑚2 𝑔 𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒−𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒

𝑎=𝑚 𝑥 100
1 +𝑚2 𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒

(0.6027 𝑁) 1.04122−0.96408
𝑎 = 0.51734 +0.0615 𝑥 100
0.96408

𝑚
𝑎 = 1.04122 𝑠2 = 8.132 %

(Computing Experimental Value)

2𝑠
𝑎 = 𝑡2

2(0.5 𝑚)
𝑎 = 1.018452

𝑚
𝑎 = 0.96408 𝑠2
CONCLUSION

This experiment tackles on Newton’s Second Law of Motion. The main idea on
performing the experiment is to verify the relationships surrounding this law. We had utilized
the dynamics cart, weight hanger, cart, digital timer, photogates and set of weights to get the
necessary data needed to complete the experiment.

Part A of the experiment tested the direct proportionality between acceleration and
net force. The group found out while performing the experiment that the acceleration
increases along with the net force while the mass is remained constant. Similarly, when net
force is decreased, acceleration also decreases. The relationship between the two is easily
observed in Figure No. 1 where there is a constant increase on both the acceleration and net
force when the net force increases while the mass of the cart is constant.

On the second part of the experiment, where the net force becomes constant and it’s
the mass of the cart changes, the objective is to verify the relationship between acceleration
and mass. It is observed that the acceleration decreases because the cart has a greater mass
and the greater load on the object has the greater resistance to motion. The graph also shows
that the acceleration is declining when the mass of the cart is amplified.

The obtained percent errors in both the two parts of the experiment with several trials
are less than 10% which is caused by either the photogates and the dynamics track because of
the impact of the cart in the track that it causes the set up to move.

Our gathered data supports the relationships surrounding the law and we can finally
conclude that acceleration is directly symmetrical to the net force governing the object when
mass is held constant and it is inversely related to mass when net force becomes constant.