Circular Motion | syndicate

"Be at the Centre of Excellence, that way, Success will Move Towards You!"-Dr. Sukhdev Kaur Bhatia

The Syndicate has been given a rough schedule, as they are required to complete SRK's Catapult, and understand the concept of circular motion in order to combat the reckless driving constantly occuring in the town of Bucktown. Woodz Co. has been constantly troubled by the recklessness of some drivers as they are turning on straight roads as a sign of rebellion which in turn, causes numerous road accidents. These drivers are outlaws who believe that a town must be a 'hood' in order to be 'cool'. Little do these drivers realize that what they are doing in order to become 'hood' is causing pain to numerous people; drivers, of course, and little Bucktown kids that play ball on the streets of Lawson and thrive in the peace created by the great, Dr. Sukhdev Kaur Bhatia.

Our Purpose:

In order to help Woodz Co. combat these delusional, sociopathic outlaws, our task, is to learn the relationship between frequency of revolution of an object in circular motion and: the magnitude of the force that causes the circular motion, the radius of the circular path, and the mass of the object.

What We Already Knew

We knew that this lab required us to use the concept of uniform circular motion and forces in circular motion. Uniform circular motion occurs for parts of any object spinning at a constant rate. For example, a fan, rotating rides at amusement parks, and wheels (when viewed from their center).

Furthermore, although an object in circular motion has constant velocity; the direction of the velocity constantly changes; as a result, the object undergoes acceleration. Therefore, an object in in uniform circular motion is undergoing acceleration. This acceleration is called centripetal acceleration.

We were also made aware, that the acceleration of an object in circular motion is always in the direction, towards the center of the circle. This is because instantaneous acceleration equals the change in velocity divided by the time interval and when performing vector subtractions, in the image to the left, we can observe that in the time interval, the resultant velocity vector is pointing towards the center of the circle; thus, proving that the direction of acceleration in circular motion is always towards the center of the circle.

Finally, we know that the net force which causes centripetal acceleration is known as the centripetal force. The centripetal force is a fictional force that can be a single force, such as gravity, or it can be a combination of forces, such as tension and gravity. In this operation, the centripetal force is going to be the force of tension. Therefore, through our previous knowledge, it is hypothesized that the relationship between the force causing the acceleration and frequency in revolution will be directly proportional; whereas, the radius and object of the mass will be inversely proportional to the frequency in revolution.