forcesprojectpart3 – Pouya’s Blog

DISCLAIMER: All mention of acceleration should be replaced with velocity, it was incorrectly denoted as acceleration while it was actually velocity during the project.

Question: On an inclined plane, what surface keeps an object completely still? Is the static coefficient of friction then comparable with online data?

In general, the purpose of this experiment was to find what surface slowed my phone’s descent the most.
The ‘stickiest’ ramp was then used to find its maximum coefficient of friction that stopped the phones descent.
From there the purpose of the experiment is to find if this coefficient of friction is comparable with reliable online data.

Raw Data Collected:

Challenges/Problems Encountered:

During data collection, it became difficult to both time and configure the desired set-up. Thankfully, this was solved when I got help from my fellow classmates, such as, Nathan.
Having the ramps stay perfectly still was also a challenge. This was solved by using books, rulers, or stones to prop-up the lighter ramps and to stop them from moving.
Another problem was that it was hard to accurately gauge acceleration because one single trial for each surface was far too unreliable. Doing multiple test trials and finding the average amongst them helped solve this problem and yield accurate acceleration.
Many of the ramps began to slide forwards without any barrier to keep them sturdy. This was solved easily with a heavy textbook placed in front of the ramps, or a well placed ruler.

Updated FBD’s:

Since the changes to the procedure did not affect the FBD’s greatly, the only change to be made was a change to an original error with the FBD’s from the first project post. This error incorrectly showed the direction of Fnet in the FBD of the moving object.

FBD of object sliding down the inclined plane/ramp (corrected version).

Raw Data Reflection:

I would say that the raw data collected so far does seem reasonable and it was somewhat anticipated. Most surfaces I expected to fair poorly or well did just as I predicted. The raw data collected also is within the boundaries of the experiments likely magnitudes making me believe that it is once again reasonable. What surprised me was the ‘stickiest’ ramp surface and its acceleration. I did not anticipate metal to have high friction when in contact with the rubber of the phone. Its very low acceleration also made for surprise and interest. Overall, the raw data both seems reasonable and was generally the expected outcome for the experiment.

Experiment Images: