Study Guide – Applying Motion to Roller Coasters (Chapter 9 Concepts)

Use your notes to answer the following questions. You will then use this study guide to help you prepare for the unit test.

  1. To be in motion, what must an object do?
  1. What is a reference point? How is it used to measure motion?
  1. If you are in space, what are the two most common reference points used?
  1. Does a reference point have to be a nonmoving object? Give an example of when a moving object would be used?
  1. What are examples of reference directions?
  1. What does speed measure?
  1. Is speed a scalar or vector quantity?
  1. What must a vector quantity include?
  1. What is the formula for average speed?
  1. What are the units used for average speed? How do you abbreviate these units?
  1. How is instantaneous speed different from average speed?
  1. How is velocity different from speed?
  1. Is velocity a vector or scalar quantity? Why?
  1. What is resultant velocity?
  1. If two velocities are in the same direction, do you add or subtract them?
  1. If two velocities are in the opposite direction, do you add or subtract them?
  1. How do you know what direction to use for resultant velocity when objects are moving in opposite directions?
  1. What is acceleration?
  1. Is acceleration a scalar or vector quantity?
  1. What are the 3 ways that objects can accelerate?
  1. How is positive acceleration different from negative acceleration?
  1. On a roller coaster, where would I find positive acceleration?
  1. On a roller coaster, where would I find negative acceleration?
  1. What is the formula for calculating acceleration?
  1. What is the unit used for acceleration?
  1. What is another name for circular acceleration?Answer: Centripetal Acceleration
  1. What is on the x and y axis of a distance-time graph?
  1. How can we tell if a speed is constant on a distance-time graph?
  1. A horizontal line on a distance-time graph indicates what?
  1. In a speed-time graph, what is on the x axis? Y axis?
  1. What does a straight horizontal line mean on a speed-time graph?
  1. How can you tell if an object is accelerating or decelerating on a speed-time graph?
  1. If you compare two lines on a speed-time graph, how can you tell which one is accelerating more?
  1. What is the formula for calculating slope?
  1. What is potential energy?
  1. What types of potential energy are there?
  1. Which type of potential energy would be most important to a roller coaster? Why?
  1. What is the formula for calculating gravitational potential energy?
  1. What is kinetic energy?
  1. What is the formula for calculating kinetic energy?
  1. When you designed a roller coaster on the smart board, what criteria was considered to make sure you had enough potential energy?
  1. How did potential energy get changed to kinetic energy on the coaster creator?
  1. What was dissipated energy? (DE)
  1. Why did some roller coasters crash at the end of the ride?
  1. What happens to your energy if a hill or loop is larger than the first hill?
  1. How is g-force different from gravitational constant?
  1. What is critical velocity?

You will be using the following formulas on the test. Be sure to review handouts that you used these formulas.

Speed = Distance/TimeDistance = Time x SpeedTime = Distance/Speed

GPE = mass x gravity x timeGPE = weight x timeKE = 0.5 x mass x speed2

Acceleration = Final Velocity – Starting Velocity
Time it takes to change velocity