Cart Challenge - Ally and Nikki

Finding the Unknown Mass

Ally and I solved to find the mass of a variable on top of a cart. The variable we found was the weight of the soup can.

First, we weighed the mass of the cart:  .49 kg. We put the center of the cart at 110 inches and the markers on the side at 53 inches and 173 inches.


After taking 5 trials of the empty cart, the average velocity taken was .5 m/s. We then put the soup on the cart and measured the velocity. After taking 5 more separate trials, we found the average velocity with the soup can to be .25 m/s.  

Then our group needed to solve for the mass of the cart with the soup can.  We used the formula mava + mbvb = (ma + mb) (Vab).

mava + mbvb = (ma + mb) (Vab)
.49 (.5) +0 = (.49 + mb) .25
.245 = .1225 + .25mb
.1225 = .25mb
.49 kg = mb

To check our percent error, our group measured the cart with the soup can on it: 478 grams and converted it to kg: 0.478 kg

Therefore our percent error= 2.51%

To calculate the percent error:
=(.478)(.49)/ .478*100
= 2.51%