Graphing Forces and Motion

  1. Forces and Motion
  2. Open a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet
  3. To title your spreadsheet, select View> Header and Footer Custom Footer.From the Page Setup dialogue box, select Custom Heading. In the field titled Centre section, write the heading: Forces and Motion and click OK:

  1. Copy the following table into your Excel spreadsheet:

Mass of Trolley (kg) / Force Applied (N) / Acceleration Produced (m/s2)
0.5 / 1 / 2
0.5 / 1.5 / 2.9
0.5 / 2 / 4.1
0.5 / 2.5 / 4.8
0.5 / 3 / 6.2
1 / 2 / 1.9
1.5 / 2 / 1.4
2 / 2 / 1.1
2.5 / 2 / 0.8
3 / 2 / 0.6
  1. Adjust the columns to the correct width to suit.
  2. Create a border around your data by highlighting the cells containing and selecting Format> Cells. Click the Borders tab, and choose a border style to suit:

  1. While the Format Cells dialogue box is still open select then Alignment and Centre data and click OK.
  2. Highlight heading and units row (Cells 1 and 2 – A to C), select Format> Cells> Shading and choose an appropriate shade to delineate the headings from the data.
  1. Now that you have imported your data in your spreadsheet here are some questions to think about and answer:

Questions

  1. The data is really about two experiments. What is the purpose of each?
  2. What was controlled in each experiment?
  3. What was measured in each experiment?
  4. Use Excel to draw two graphs to represent the data.
  5. What conclusions can be drawn from each graph?
  1. Let's turn the data into a graph:

GRAPH 1: FORCE VS ACCELERATION

  1. Highlight the data (not including the headings) in cells 3B&C down to 7B&C.
  2. Click the Chart Wizard button:
  3. A choice of graphs appears. Choose the line graph, then select a line graph to suit and click Next.
  4. In the DataRangewindow, click on Series in: Columns.
  5. From the same dialogue box click on the Series tab and click on the reduce screen icon in Values.
  6. Highlight the acceleration readings (y- values) in the cells 3C down to 7C. Click the reduce screen icon again to return to your DataRange dialogue box. A one line graph should appear with acceleration on the y-axis.
  7. Click on the reduce screen icon for Category (X) values icon. Highlight all X values (cells 3B to 713) and click on the reduce screen icon again to return to the DataRange dialogue box. Click Next.
  8. Add titles for the heading, name and units for both X and Y axes and click Next.
  9. In the chart location dialogue box, select As object in: Same sheet. Click Finish.

GRAPH 2: MASS VS ACCELERATION

Follow instructions as above, to create a graph that illustrates mass vs. acceleration. Remember to highlight the data in cells 8A to 12A, (mass) and cells 8C to 12C.

Answer the following questions:

  1. State Newton’s Second Law of Motion in words.
  2. Use a mathematical formula to demonstrate Newton’s Second Law of Motion.
  3. Calculate the force being applied if:
  4. a 5 kg box accelerates at 4 m/s2
  5. a 1.3 tonne car accelerates at 3m/s2
  6. a 600 g ball accelerates at 4 m/s2
  7. Calculate the acceleration caused by:
  8. a 80 N force applied to a 0.5 kg mass
  9. a 0.5 N force applied to a 60 kg mass
  10. a 35 N force causes a mass to accelerate at 6m/s2. Calculate the mass.