How increasing the angle of a slope affects the acceleration of a cart
An experiment was carried out where a cart was rolled from a stationar start down a ramp. The average acceleration was determined using two light gates 1.8 m apart. The first gate gave the initial velocitu (u) and the second light gate gave the final velocity (v). A stopwatch was used to time how long it took the cart to travel between the two light gates. The experiment was repeated three times to get an average time and final velocity. These were used to calculate the average acceleration and this was then plotted on a graph.
It can bee seen from the graph that there is an increase in acceleration of the cart as the angle of the slope increases. The cart has more gravitational potential energy at a greater angle and this leads to an increase in its kinetic energy at the bottom of the ramp. This can only happen if the accelration increase along with the angle of the slope.