Name______________________
Date__________ Period______ _
*Teachers and students carrying out this lab should be familiar with PASCO Capstone software.
All answers and data must follow the PSI Lab Report Format.
Objectives
● Demonstrate the conservation of momentum through elastic and inelastic collisions using the given materials
● Show when Kinetic Energy is/is not conserved
Materials
● One dynamics rail and two carts
● PASCO interface
● Two Motion sensors (if possible, set to wide beam)
● Computer with PASCO capstone software
Guiding Questions:
Which concepts/main ideas apply to this lab?
What equations may apply to this lab?
How would differences in the masses of the carts affect your results?
In what ways will your materials be used? How do they apply to your chosen equations?
How can you use the PASCO interface to record useful information?
A complete lab report must include:
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The materials you used and how you used them
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A detailed procedure describing how to setup the experiment
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Observations to support the Conservation of Momentum
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Analysis of the data
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A conclusion:
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summarizing your results
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In which collisions was Kinetic Energy conserved? In which collisions was Kinetic
Energy not conserved? Why?
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assessing any errors that may have affected your data
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discussing how you might improve the experiment and / or describing what further experiments you might like to perform on this subject
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