FSE 06 Determining the Acceleration Due to Gravity Using a Car on a Ramp

This experiment investigates how a car’s motion down a ramp can be used to calculate acceleration and determine the gravitational constant.

Background

The acceleration due to gravity (𝑔) affects the motions of objects near Earth’s surface, pulling objects towards the Earth’s center. When an object moves in a certain direction with a non-constant slope, gravity is split into two components: one parallel and the other perpendicular.

Figure 01: Free Body Diagram of an Object of an Inclined Plane

Objective

The objective of this experiment is to use the values we have derived from the experiment, the car’s traveling displacement and time, to derive the gravitational acceleration, 𝑔. To do this, we will first calculate the car’s velocity and acceleration through mathematical principles, then calculate the gravitational acceleration with the kinematic motion equation.