Lab: Non constant accelerating activity
Date perform: September 7 2016
Purpose: Find the distance of the elephant before coming to a rest.
Theory: We were given time and from Newton second law were able to find the acceleration. Then from acelartion and time we can get velocity. After that we should have all the tools to obtain distance.
Apparatus: In this lab we were given a problem that a 5000kg elephant with roller skates. The elephant had a rocket on its back that was generating a constant thrust opposite the elephant direction of motion. We had to find the distance before coming to a rest. So with numbers given we plug them in excel.


From the time we were able to plug it in Newton second law equation to find acceleration. From acceleration we added the one before and current acceleration and divide it by two to give us the average acceleration. We multiply the average acceleration with time to give us the velocity. Then we added the velocity with initial velocity, divide it by two to give us average velocity. Lastly, we multiply the average velocity with time and were able to get the distance.
Doing the problem analytically save us a large amount of time compare to numerically. We were less likely to make a mistake analytically, and if we did it would be much easier to fix.
Here is the equation we receive from Newton second law to find acceleration.