Measure the motion of a cart on a track

The eventual goal in this experiment is to determine the acceleration of a cart as it rolls down a tilted track, but we won't reach it until our next meeting. Today, we simply want to make some measurements.

You have the following equipment:

a track with attached tape measure
one wooden block
a cart
a stopwatch

Measure the time it takes for the cart to roll from a standing start the following distances: 20 cm, 30 cm, 40 cm, 50 cm . Make three trials at each distance.

Write down your results in a table which looks something like this. Don't worry too much about the columns for "avg time" and "(avg time)²" -- we'll deal with them later.


                                                                                      2    2
Distance (cm)              Time to roll (s)               avg time (s)      (avg time)  (s)
                         
                    Trial       Trial      Trial 
                      1           2          3                                         
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20 +/-                                                          +/-                +/-


30 +/-                                                          +/-                +/-


40 +/-                                                          +/-                +/-


50 +/-                                                          +/-                +/-

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