Monday, December 15, 2014

Lab 3: An Elephant on Roller Skates with a rocket attached

         As inhabitants of the earth, it is our job to protect it. When an elephant is rolling down a hill, we have to make sure the elephant does not fall off the edge and die in the process.

         We have to find the original speed of the elephant so that it does not fall off a cliff. A 5000-kg elephant on frictionless roller skates starts at 25 m/s going down a hill. When it hits a level plain, the rocket attached to the elephant then starts generating a constant 8000 N thrust against the direction the elephant is going down the hill. The mass of the rocket follows the equation m(t) = 1500kg - 20kg/s(t).

  From the equation F = ma. We derive a = f/m. 


In this case a(t)= 8000kg/((1500kg+5000kg)-20kg/s*t).
This equation will be simplified to:
a(t) = -400/(325-t) m/s^2

From our experiment the value we got was 248.69 meters which is to what you have calculated for us 248.7.

Ultimately the experiment was a success as the results were almost exactly the same.




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