Student Exploration: Roller Coaster Physics

Name: Date: February 1st Format all responses in blue bold font. Student Exploration: Roller Coaster Physics Vocabulary (refer to vocab file located on the Gizmo site for definitions): friction, gravitational potential energy, kinetic energy, momentum Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.) Sally gets onto the roller coaster car, a bit nervous already. Her heart beats faster as the car slowly goes up the first long, steep hill. deceleration. 1. What happens at the beginning of every roller coaster ride? You go up a very large hill and then go down it. 2.Does the roller coaster ever get higher than the first hill? Explain. No because any hill higher then the first one will cause Gizmo Warm-up: The Roller Coaster Physics Gizmo™ models a roller coaster with a toy car on a track that leads to an egg. You can change the track or the car. For the first experiment, use the default settings (Hill 1 = 70 cm, Hill 2 = 0 cm, Hill 3 = 0 cm, 35-g car). 1.Press Play () to roll the 35-gram toy car down the track. Does the car break the egg? It touches it but does not break it. 2.Click Reset (). Set Hill 1 to 80 cm, and click Play. Does the car break the egg? Yes. 3.Click Reset. Lower Hill 1 back to 70 cm and select the 50-gram toy car. Click Play. Does the 50-gram car break the egg? Yes 4.What factors seem to determine whether the car will break the egg? The weight of the car and the height of the hill. Activity A: Roller coaster speed Get the Gizmo ready: Click Reset. Select the 35-g toy car. Question: What factors determine the speed of a roller coaster? 1.Observe: Set Hill 1 to 100 cm, Hill 2 to 0 cm, and Hill 3 to 0 cm. Be sure the Coefficient of friction is set to 0.00. (This means that there is no friction, or resistance to motion.) A.Click Play. What is the final speed of the toy car? 442.9 B.Try the other cars. Does the mass of the car affect its final speed? No 2.Collect data: Find the final speed of a toy car in each situation. Leave the last column blank. Hill 1 Hill 2 Hill 3 Final speed Total height lost 40 cm 0 cm 0 cm 283.6 40 40 cm 30 cm 0 cm 283.6 40 60 cm 50 cm 20 cm 280.1 40 60 cm 0 cm 0 cm 343.1 60 60 cm 45 cm 0 cm 343.1 60 90 cm 75 cm 30 cm 343,1 60 3.Analyze: Look at the data carefully. Notice that it is organized into two sets of three trials. A.What did each set of trials have in common? Almost all of them stayed the same B.Did hill 2 have any effect on the final speed? no C.Label the last column of the table Total height lost. Fill in this column by subtracting the height of hill 3 from the height of hill 1. D.What do you notice about the Total height lost in each set of trials? It stays the same for each set of 3 trials