ACCELERATED PHYSICS LAB REPORT

THE LAW OF CONSERVATION OF

MOMENTUM 

PREPARED AND PRESENTED BY

MIND, ATOM, KUGKIG, PUNDA, PRAEW, MESSE
 3 OBJECTIVE
4 INTRODUCTION
5 MATERIALS
ONTENTS

6 METHODS
7 PICTURES
8-9 DISCUSSION
10-11 DATA & RESULT
12 ANALYSIS
TABLE OF

13 CONCLUSION
14 RECOMMENDATION
 OBJECTIVE
The main objective of this experiment
is to visualize the concept of
conservation of momentum in order
to create a better understanding of
the concept.

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 INTRODUCTION
   
The quantity of movement or motion an object has is called momentum in term of
physics. We can explain it more specifically as mass times velocity (MxV). Momentum is
a vector quantity which means it has to have both magnitude and direction. According
to the equation MxV, if the velocity is a non-zero quantity, the momentum will occur. In
another word, any object that has motion also has momentum. The law of
conservation of momentum states that in an isolated system when two objects collide
with each other, the momentum before the collision and the momentum after the
collision will be equal. This is because the momentum is conserved. This lab is designed
to demonstrate the concept of conservation of momentum.

The researchers will be given a motion detector, two carts, and a lab quest which show
the graph of a moving object detected by a motion detector. The graph can determine
the speed of the object at a certain time. Before putting two carts on a motion
detector, the researchers have to measure the mass of both carts. With one person
exerts a force to one of the carts, let it go forward and collide with another card, the
lab quest will show the graph of the motion of the carts. The researchers then now
observe the speed before and after the collision. After that, calculate the momentum
with a mass that was measured before and compare them.

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 MATERIALS

MOTION DETECTOR

CART BALANCE

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 MATERIALS
1. First Experiment

Set up the motion detector system which includes a motion

detector device, 2 carts, cart rail, and lab quest.
Weight both carts on the balance.
Start the motion detector from lab quest and check whether it is
working properly or not by listening to the sound made from the
motion detector device.
Push the first cart on the rail after starting the motion detector.
Record the velocity before collision with another cart and velocity
after collision.
Repeat the experiment 3 times.

2. Second experiment

Add mass on to the cart.

Weight the cart together with the mass.
Replace the second cart on the rail with the new cart with a lab
quest the first cart on the rail after starting the motion detector.
Record the velocity before collision with another cart and velocity
after collision.
Repeat the experiment 3 times. 
Compare the results of the first and second experiment.

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PICTURES
DISCUSSION
   The experiment support concept of momentum. Momentum is the
inertia in motion which represent by an equation P = mv or momentum
= mass times velocity. In this experiment, we use LabQuest to measure
the velocity of the cart in each moment to motion that the cart had on
the motion detector and measure the mass of the carts by the scale.
  
     In this experiment, the cart with we be pushed and collide with
another cart and stick together. We exam the conservation of
momentum which has an equation, m1v1= m2v2or momentum before
collision = momentum after the collision. Moreover, this experiment
also related to impulse which is a change in momentum or to mean by
force apply on an object to change momentum. The equation for the
impulse is DP = Ft or impulse = force times time.
  
     The experiment has two set and had been done three times each.
The first set is mass increased cart collide with another cart and the
second experiment is the mass increased cart collide with another
mass increased cart.  However, whether the mass is increased on the
second cart or not, the momentum before and after collision still
remain in the very similar amount (actually is must be the same
number but in this case, there is a human error in exerting the force at
the first time to make the first cart move so the velocity will be
changed a little bit). 

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     However, the result is very similar. For example, in the first
experiment, the first cart which has mass increased is 519.81 gram and
another cart is 514.62 g. They have combined mass equal to 1034.43 g.
The velocity that we measure by LabQuest is 0.291 and 131.37 in order.
When we plug in the number in the equation of momentum, the result
for before collision is 0.15126 kg m/s and after collision equal to 0.13137
kg m/s.

    The second experiment has the same method as the first experiment
but the mass was added to the second cart to 1047.03 g so the total
mass will increase to 1566.84 g. When the velocities, 0.315 (before
collision) and 0.094 (after collision) were plugs in the equation with the
mass numbers the result that came out is 0.16374 kg m/s and 0.14728
kg m/s.

     If the experiment was observed by the eyes it can also conclude
that when there is more mass so it has more momentum which means
there is more inertia in motion so the carts with more mass move
slower than less mass.

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 DATA & RESULT
m1  =  519.81 g.  &  m2  =  514.62 g.
1. Before adding mass to Cart 2
Total mass  =  1034.43 g

Table 1 : Velocity and time before/after collision when mass was not added

Table 1 : Velocity and time before/after collision when mass was not added

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 2. After adding mass to Cart 2 m1  =  519.81 g.  &  m2  =  1047.03 g.
Total mass  =  1566.84 g

Table 3 : Velocity and time before/after collision when mass was added 

Table 4 : Changes in momentum before/after collision when mass was added 

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 ANALYSIS
      During the first experiment, cart 1 was moved at an average
speed of 0.251 m/s and collided with cart 2 that has no additional
mass attached to itself. After the collision, these two carts stuck
together and moved at an average speed of 0.111 m/s along the
track. In the second experiment, an additional mass was added to
cart 2. At first, cart 1  was moved at an average speed of 0.331
m/s before the collision.  After the collision, the average speed
turned to be 0.099 m/s. According to this, we can notice that the
rate of velocity change after the collision in the first and second
experiment are quite different. When the mass is added to cart 2
in the second experiment, the object's motion will become
deaccelerated as it has more mass and therefore, more inertia. 
We also calculate the amount of momentum before collision and
momentum after the collision to determine whether momentum is
conserved. Even though the net change of momentum that we
get is not exactly 0, the number is not that bigger than 0. Which
can be inferred that there might be some external factor that
makes the result of this experiment become bias. 

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 CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this experiment can illustrate the law of
conservation of momentum through the study of various
collision between two carts. It reveals that the momentum
before collision needed to be equal to the momentum after
collision. However, there's still some error which makes the
result become not very accurate.

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RECOMMENDATION
In this experiment, we think that we should improve on the
data collecting part. When we doing the experiment, we
only recorded the number before the collision and data
right after the collision. The data we collected was only
recorded for the calculation of the impulse and momentum
that needed to. But luckily, we did take the picture of the
graph of the experimentation, then recorded the number of
data for calculation after. So we still have a graph
reference. The error on this experiment was the technical
problem During the experiment, the experiment rail did not
work. Therefore, we start the car’s motion on the position
beyond 70 cm in order the equipment could work and
collect the data.

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 REFERENCES
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/lin
ear-momentum/momentum-tutorial/a/what-are-
momentum-and-impulse

https://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/moment
um/u4l1a.cfm

https://physics.info/momentum/summary.shtml

https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/z32h9qt/revi
sion/1