Untitled Document

Physics Demo Number: 135

Approximate

Run Time: 5 min

Fan Cart Run on 2M Track with Position Sensor Computer Tracking

Demo Description

Run Fan Cart on Pasco track with position sensor monitoring to get a graphic handle on Newton's Second Law.

Scientific Principles

F = m a

Equipment

Fan cart and regular cart.
Pasco Science Workshop 750 Interface

Equipment Location

[E-1-2]
[E-1-2]

Instructions

The first photo shows the 'position-sensor- USB750- Interface' hook up to the Lecture Hall PC and thus to the lecture hall interface.

The regular cart shown can be replaced by the fan cart, or the fan cart can be piggy-backed on this cart to show the effect of mass change for a given fan force.

The second photo shows the result of plugging the USB out cable of the 750 into a USB port of the lecture hall PC, running theData Studio program on the PC, and displaying on the “stage left projector” in two projector mode.

Note that one may have to fiddle with the Calculate button on the “Graph” software tool bar to make position equal “1-x” to make the handedness of the coordinate system the same as that of the audience view.

Unfortunately the display then sloppily calls velocity “-x”. This potentially confusing aspect of the display can be literally “covered over” by expanding the width of the graph dialog box window.