Collision investigation INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND INFORMATION There are many factors which could affect the impact and

aftermath of a car collision. Along with the many possibilities of varying the weight, the force, the drag (inertia), friction of surface of where the object is traveling, and the mass this would all affect the outcome of the crash. AIM / RESEARCH QUESTION / PROBLEM Would the amount of force (in Newtons) affect the collision distance of a toy car? HYPOTHESIS It is predicted that if more force (in Newtons) is applied to the toy car during release, the collision distance would be further. This could be explained by newtons second law of motion, which states that the force on the object depends on how much the mass is, combined with the acceleration of the object. Therefore we could tell that the force applied will have an impact on how the toy car accelerates, and then would then affect the force put on to the wall when the toy car bounces back from it. VARIABLES Independent Variable: Newtons applied to slingshot Dependent Variable: The collision distance of the toy car Fixed Variable: The set travel distance of the toy car, the surface of where the toy car is traveling, the same toy car, Same slingshot MATERIALS and METHOD MATERIALS

Chair (1) Elastic band (4 meters) Toy car (1) Newton meter (1) Tape Measurer (1)

DIAGRAMS / PHOTOGRAPHS

Chair

Elastic band (wrapped around legs of chair)

Toy Car (629.5 grams)

grams

Tape Measurer

METHOD 1. Set up equipment as shown in diagram. 2. Pull the slingshot created with the elastic band with the Newton meter up to 5 newtons 3. Hold the elastic band at that place 4. Place the toy car directly in front of the elastic band (front of toy car must be at 100 cm) 5. Sling shot the toy car 6. Record the length of how much it bounces back from the wall to the front of the toy car. 7. Repeat steps 2-6 four more times times. 8. Repeat steps 2-7 for 10 newtons, 15 newtons, 20 newtons, 25 newtons, and 30 newtons.

RESULTS RAW DATA Force (In Newtons) 5 10 15 20 25 30 QUALITATIVE DATA: As more force is applied, the car tends to travel more out of course (not in a straight line) The car ricochets back diagonally (?) when hit against the wall. Trial 1 (cm) 42 50 66 80 86 85 Trial 2 (cm) 45 49 56 90 76 77 Trial 3 (cm) 49 44 47 77 88 55 Trial 4 (cm) 52 55 42 71 83 90 Trial 5 (cm) 55 58 51 66 63 96

PROCESSED DATA and ANALYSIS CALCULATING THE AVERAGE FORMULA [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Plugging in results from data set 1 (5 Newtons applied)

Applied Force (Newtons, 0.1 N) 5 10 15 20 25 30

Average (Newtons, 0.1 CM) 48.6 51.2 52.4 76.8 79.2 80.6

90

80

70

y = 1,5337x + 37,96 R = 0,8561

Average collision distance (cm)

60

50

40

30

20

10

10

15

20

25

30

35

Force (Newtons)

DATA ANALYSIS It could be seen from the graph that there is a strong positive correlation between the data that was collected. Although there is a huge jump between the data collected for 15 Newtons and 20 Newtons, this might have been because an anomaly in the data. It could be only explained if that the force applied was more than usual, or maybe there was an error in gathering the data. In other words, the data gained from the trials were around in the same range, but there could have been some errors in collecting data whilst collecting data for the last three data sets. DISCUSSION CONCLUSION In conclusion, we have proved our hypothesis of that if we apply more force to a toy car, it travels back further as it collides with the wall. This is because following Newtons laws; the net force is equal to the mass times the acceleration. If we rotate around these variables, we could see that the acceleration of the object is equal to the force divided by time. This makes all three variables indirectly parallel to each other if one is increased, they all increase. Therefore if we increase the force applied to the toy car, the further it would bounce back. Now, according to Newtons third law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. By looking at the data that we have collected, we see that this is nearly true due to the fact that there are many variations of measurements in our data sets, but there have been incidences during our experiment that could have affected how precise our data may be. Following this, we could see that the force applied has an effect on the collision distance. Therefore somewhat verifying that as we increase the force, the force within the toy car increases, thus proving that if we increase the force, the force that is acted upon the object is somewhat equal to what was applied. EVALUATION From the data we collected, we found that there is a positive correlation between the data, proving our hypothesis that if we increase more force on a toy car, it would travel further once it collides against a surface correct. The data steadily increases and there is a jump of data, and then it increases steadily again. This may have been because of the data collected we havent collected it in a way so that we could actually see the real force we applied to the toy car with the elastic band. This is a human error. Apart from that, it should be noted that the car travelled in many ways (diagonally, etc), which could have affected our data collection process, therefore making our data not that precise. Improvements that could have been made to this experiment is to find a way how to measure the amount of force given to the elastic bands before and seconds before firing the toy car to the wall. Another thing that should be noted is that there should be a specific track made just so that the toy car does not go in any other direction. FINAL CONCLUSION The collision distance of a toy car is somewhat proportional to the force that is applied to it, and the direction of where the car goes also affects how it collides with a surface. The data collected is not quite reliable; however the trend that we see in this could be justified with the amount of trials that we have taken.