Wheelchair+Wonders

=** Wheelchair Wonders **=

street and the mass of him and his wheelchair **find the height of the ramp so that George will come to a stop directly in front of the bus if he just rolls down.** Length between house and street:6 Meters, the ramp is three feet long and the distance after is three feet long Friction of wheelchair with George: 22.27 Newtons George's Mass with wheelchair: 100 kg
 * Basic Idea and goal:** George a young student was unfortunately handicapped last year. Bound to a wheelchair his parents both have day jobs. George needs a way to get to the bus stop, given the length between his house and the
 * Given Data:**

1. We found the force of friction of the wheelchair by utilizing Logger Pro. 2. Using the equation F=MA we found George's acceleration 3. Then we plugged the acceleration into a kinematic formula to find the initial velocity after the ramp which became the final velocity of the descent down the ramp 4. With that velocity we were able to find kinetic energy with the formula KE=.5MV^2 5. After this we went through a long series of substitutions for the variables that we don't know and we ended up with the formula: tanø=KE-FfX/mgX 6. We knew all of these numbers so were just able to plug them in and find the angle measurement which turned out to be 2.5 7. By using SOH CAH TOA were able to find the opposite side Y, the height 8. By doing the formula backwards we were able to determine that it turned out to be the correct answer
 * Procedure:**


 * Data:**.


 * Conclusion:** The angle should be 2.5 degrees and the height should be .13098 meters.This problem was mathematically more complex than most of the stuff that we have done this semester. At first it seemed like a very simple, straightforward idea but as we progressed it became more and more challenging. That said, the actual equation was easy it was just all of the substituting and messing around with the math that had to be done in order to obtain the necessary equation. This was because we were solving for multiple variables, the angle and the height at the same time. All though this was hard it was nothing we didn't know it was just a larger version of what we've done before. It also involved many things that we learned this year including SOH CAH TOA, Kinematics, and energy. We had a real life application and the was the logger pro friction force.The lab worked, as seen in step eight, and we were able to find the height that the ramp should start at. We were surprised at how small the angle was, but it was not a large distance to the street so it seemed plausible. Hopefully George will have an easier time getting to school now.
 * Error:** A problem area that we had was that we did not use the mass with the wheel chair until the very end and at that point all the data had been done with just my mass without the wheelchair added in. So we had to go all the way back to the beginning and enter that new combined mass to find the answer again. It turned out to be a very nice round number so it made redoing the problem very easy.

Lab by Joe Hampton

and Sam Olah © 2011