13th Journal Entry

9-10-10

Today our work time was significantly cut by the irregular schedule, but we still got considerable work done. I Estimated that by hitting in the center of the hitting circle would give us better results. This is because more of the force would be put in the car and less into flinging the parts in the air. Our results are listed below: Distance 1) 1.45m, 2) 3.32, and 3) 3.86 (distance 3 was with center force).

We got the acceleration and velocity by plugging in the time initials, time finals, and distances, then we used the velocities to find the acceleration. We used the formulas v=d/t and a= vi-vf/t. We also did our first force diagram (we know we are behind, but will work hard and pull through) today. As the force diagam shows, the spring force needs to overcome the forces against it to move the mass into acceleration (F=ma).