BACKGROUND:

• We can often find useful, interesting day-to-day occurrences to help us understand topics in science.

• We will design and build a mouse-trap car to help us understand the concepts of momentum and impulse.

INVESTIGATE QUESTION: What sort of motion will a mtc experience in a *successful* model of an airbag protected vehicle collision.

GOAL: Design and construct a mtc that provides motion data that shows how airbags keep us safe in a vehicle collision.

CONCEPTS INVOLVED:

• Force (F) (measured in Newtons)
• Impulse (J) (CHANGE of momentum)
• Momentum (p) (measured in kilograms-meters/second)
• Time (t) (measured in seconds)
• Velocity (v) (measured in meters/second)

DAY #1: Prelab

Part #1: Work with your group to examine how an airbag deployment keeps us safe in a vehicle collision. Grab a few feet of butcher paper and sketch the situation using words like force, time, momentum, change in momentum and impulse.

Part #2: Work with your group to determine what sort of data obtained from our Vernier motion sensors will show a successful model of an airbag collision. It will help to *imagine* yourself in a collision where an airbag is employed. What sort of motion will be harmful? What sort of motion will help you survive?

Begin writing your purpose, materials, methods and construct an appropriate data table.

• You do NOT have to list all the materials that make up a mouse trap car that came from the kit-- just indicate the name of the kit and manufacturer of that kit. If you already listed ALL of those, no worries.
• You DO need to indicate any materials that you added to your mtc

DAY #3: Finish building your car. Begin collecting data. Revise models as needed.

DAY #4: Prelab Revise/recollect finish taking data. Begin lab write-up including a Force vs. Time graph. This will be a wee bit tricky since our Vernier Software will give us an Acceleration vs Time Graph!!!

A well constructed graph must include:

• A meaningful title
• meaningful x axis label
• meaningful y axis label
• appropriate x axis units
• appropriate y axis units
• appropriate graph (hint: bar graphs are RARELY appropriate)