Marble Ramp Experiment

Wooden ramp with beveled end and a channel down the center.

Marble ramp experiment.

Big idea planning and carrying out investigations is an essential physics skill students can use to design a lab where potential energy is transferred into kinetic energy. Students will use a marble ramp laboratory experiment to demonstrate an understanding of work and energy. Once your experiment is well aligned and your calculations and measurements agree you get to design an experiment. Release the marble from the top 30cm 3 4 of the way up 22 5 cm half way up 15 cm and 1 4 of the way up 7 5 cm.

Lengths of textured fabric cut to fit the ramp cloth towel paper towel foil sandpaper wax paper cling wrap foam. Use a stopwatch to time how long it takes for a marble to go from the base of the ramp to the 1 meter mark. Students will figure out how quickly the marble travels if the starting point is raised or lowered. It is called shelf bracket tracks or shelf uprights.

Photogate ramp labquest rulers marble we will construct the ramp and set up the photogate and perform the experiment to get the data. A meter stick two marble balls with the same mass two photogate timers a motion sensor a wooden ramp with a length of x meters and a few textbooks. Long cardboard tube such as an empty roll of wrapping paper to make your ramp. Material procedure step by step numbered bullet points on how you are conducting your experiment.

Track material is easy to work with and cheap. Then we will upload our data to our individual weeblys. An example of potential energy is a stretched out rubber band the farther you stretch it the more potential energy it has. I have seen various hardware stores and building supply s.

In this experiment you will roll a marble down a ramp to find out. Potential energy is the energy that is stored in an object. By utilizing simple math equations students will figure out the average rate at which a marble travels across each inch on a ramp. In this experiment the inclined plane makes work easier by allowing gravity without any help from you to move the marble down the ramp.

This experiment requires a few things. By rolling a steel marble down a ramp and measuring its horizontal range you can calculate the marble s launch velocity. Note these textbooks must be the same mass and have the same dimensions.