Acceleration against time

Displacement against time

Planning

Actual plan:
We marked out intervals of 0.300m, 1.000m, 1.500m, 2.000m,2.5000m on the ground using masking tape, measured using a measuring tape. The markings on the ground represented the position of each step we had to take to achieve a constant acceleration of 0.50m/s^2. Using a stopwatch, we then timed ourselves to walk through the distance.

Evaluation of results and design:
Using a software tracker, we plotted a graph. From the graph, we can conclude that the displacement and acceleration increases as the time increases.
We assumed that the video was taken at the same position throughout. A source of error might be that the software tracker had inaccurately tracked the movement of the person walking and might be affected disruptions in the video. Also, random error such as human action time might be present when timing using the stopwatch.

The acceleration was not at a constant 0.5ms^-2, contrary to expectations, due to the form of human locomotion, in which it is very difficult to ensure that the acceleration is the same between each step. In addition, instead of maintaining a constant rate of acceleration, we only increased our speed at intervals, hence contributing to the inconsistency.