Newton’s Second Law to Go

Ole Anton Haugland

Citation: The Physics Teacher 57, 86 (2019); doi: 10.1119/1.5088466

View online: https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5088466
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Published by the American Association of Physics Teachers
Newton’s Second Law to Go
Ole Anton Haugland, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

S
tudents should have a strong conceptual understanding
of the connection between force and acceleration before
they start working with applications and problem solv-
ing. This has been discussed in the literature.1,2 During these
days of flipped classroom instruction, an at-home activity
could be especially valuable. I will describe an experiment
with very simple equipment that students could do on their
own. To give students a feeling of the connection between
force and acceleration, it has been quite common to let them
draw blocks or carts across the table with a rubber band or a
metal spring. But keeping the rubber band or spring at con-
stant length can be quite a challenge. Instead I was looking
for some kind of dynamics cart track made from very simple Fig. 1. Simple dynamics cart track. The cart rolls on two empty
soda cans. The string slides on two full soda cans held together
equipment that students have at home.
with rubber bands. (Here we used non-alcoholic beer cans.)

A kitchen dynamics cart track

The main parts of the equipment are a piece of cardboard,
The experiment
soda cans, a smartphone, and weights, as shown in Fig. 1. The intention of the experiment is to give students an
In the experiment shown we used small chocolate bars with introductory ex-
a mass of 25 g each as weights, but anything that could be perience with the
placed fairly sturdily on the “cart” could be used. The cart is connection between
made from a piece of stiff cardboard about 30 cm long. If it is net force and acceler-
difficult to find a stiff piece of cardboard, one could fold and ation when the mass
glue together a double piece. It would be wise to introduce this is kept constant—
experiment some time beforehand so that students could have that is, a ~ F. The
time to think about equipment they would need. It can also trick we use to keep
be worth considering if students should be offered to borrow the mass constant in
equipment like metal nuts, (which we have sometimes used this experiment is to
instead of chocolate bars), rubber bands, string, etc. move weights from
The cart rolls very easily on the two empty soda cans. Soda the cart to the basket
cans are quite light and they are sturdy. In our case the mass or hook at the end of
of the two soda cans amounted to about 10% of the total mass the string, as shown
of the weights, phone, and cart. Thus the mass of the soda in Fig. 2. Then the
cans should not contribute too much to the inertia of the force that accelerates
system. The phone was fastened to the cardboard with rubber the weights on the
bands. The rubber bands must be placed so that they do not cart and the weights Fig. 2. Chocolate weights in a basket. The
cardboard box acts as a stopper.
touch the cans as the cardboard rolls forward. The weights in the basket has
are glued to the cardboard with double-sided tape. Instead of increased, but the total number of weights to be accelerated
a pulley at the edge of the table, the string slides easily over is the same. This technique of moving weights is well known
two full soda cans. The two full cans are held closely together from more standard experiments with Atwood’s machine.3
by rubber bands, and this makes them not roll off the table. When introducing the experiment beforehand the teacher
The coupled cans are almost immovable. The author would should emphasize that the same force is needed to accelerate
be very glad to hear from readers who have other ideas for a a mass whether it is horizontally or vertically. All the time the
“low-friction pulley” made from very simple and common weight of the hanging chocolates is to accelerate the whole
material. For the smartphone’s safety, something soft could system, that is, all the chocolate bars, cart, and phone. We rec-
be placed in front of the full cans. Here we used a loose-leaf ommend the use of four or five weights. We also recommend
binder. The weights are distributed on the cardboard so that it to start with few weights in the basket. Then the acceleration
does not tip during the forward motion. Something should be is small and you get some experience before the larger accel-
placed under the edge of the table to stop the falling weights. erations occur. In any case students should be warned that
We used a cardboard box as shown in Fig. 2. The string that they must take their time and practice. It is my experience
can be glimpsed at the right end of the cardboard in Fig. 1 is that students are more patient and creative when they work
just for making the release of the cardboard more controlled. with an experiment at home than when they work in the lab.

86 THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 57, February 2019 DOI: 10.1119/1.5088466

 -S m1

S
m
r
3,8 m/s2
P m2

m 2g

Fig. 5. The acceleration is calculated by considering the cart

(m1) and the weight (m2) as our system. The forces that deter-
Fig. 3. Resulting acceleration-time graph. Here mine the acceleration of our system are the horizontal force
small metal nuts were used as weights. This is from the cylinder on the cart ,–S, and the weight of m2. For the
from trial number 3 with eight nuts in the basket. sake of simplicity only one rolling can is shown.

4.0
slope is 0.459 and the mass of a nut was 16.6 g. Using g = 9.81
3.5
y = 0.459x m/s2, this gives a = kF, where k = 2.82 kg-1. The total mass of
3.0 nuts, phone, and cart in this case was M = 0.291 kg or 1/M =
Acceleraon (m/s2)

2.5 3.43 kg-1. We see that the deviation is quite large. In these ex-
2.0 periments it typically lies in the range 15-20%. We have calcu-
1.5 lated the effect of the can’s inertia via analysis of the free-body
1.0 diagram in Fig. 5. The result is
0.5
0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Number of nuts Thus it can be said that the cans contribute with only half their
Fig. 4. Acceleration for various numbers of mass to the inertia of the system. So this effect seems to be too
weights in the basket. There were three trials for small to fully explain the discrepancy. It seems that friction
each weight. must be an important factor as well.
Students are often too rushed in the lab.
The measurements must be repeated for each weight Summary
distribution until you get a plateau of relatively constant ac- In this article we have described a very simple homemade
celeration. Then the value of the acceleration is read from the dynamics cart track that can be used to study the functional
graph. Figure 3 shows an example. Here we used quite small relationship between net force and acceleration. It can be used
metal nuts as weights and they were moved two by two from as a take-home experiment for students. In that case, it would
the cart to the basket. The measurements were made with the be natural that students include a video when they report
app Vernier Graphical Analysis.4 The results for the different from their experiment. This experiment should give students
weight distributions are presented in Fig. 4. Here we made a better conceptual understanding of the connection between
three measurements for each weight distribution. We added a force and acceleration before they start working with applica-
trendline of the form y = constant ∙ x to get an impression of tions and problem solving.
the proportionality. We can see that many of the data points
overlap quite well. It was not the point of this introductory ex- References
periment on the connection between force and acceleration to 1. Joshua Gates, “Experimentally building a qualitative under-
introduce the standard units; therefore, we have used number standing of Newton’s second law,” Phys. Teach. 52, 542 (Dec.
of nuts as the unit on the horizontal axis. 2014).
2. Lillian C. McDermott, Peter S. Shaffer, and Mark D. Somers,
Discussion “Research as a guide for teaching introductory mechanics: An
illustration in the context of the Atwood’s machine,” Am. J.
We have disregarded two effects that could be important in
Phys. 62, 46 (Jan. 1994).
this experiment, the inertia of the rolling cans and the friction
3. Thomas B. Greenslade Jr., “Atwood’s machine,” Phys. Teach. 23,
between the string and the full cans. When I first tested this 24 (Jan. 1985).
experiment, I was pleased to see that the results showed quite 4. Vernier Graphical Analysis app, https://itunes.apple.com/au/
a high degree of proportionality of F and a. Concerning the app/vernier-graphical-analysis/id522996341?mt=8 .
rolling cans, both their linear and angular accelerations would
Ole Anton Haugland has taught physics in the Department of Education at
be proportional to the net force acting on them. Just to see
the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, Norway for more than 30 years.
how well the values in Fig. 4 agree with the quantitative ver- He likes to use simple mechanical devices in his teaching. Maybe that
sion of Newton’s second law has to do with his fascination for farm machinery from early childhood on.
oleantonhaugland@gmail.com
we could look at the slope of the trendline in the figure. The

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