Spin the wheel and measure its angular acceleration

If you spin a wheel rapidly, then release it, it will gradually slow down and finally come to a halt. The question of the day is is the angular acceleration constant?

Here's how to answer the question. We'll do this as a group:

1. Place a piece of masking tape on the rim of a wheel to serve as a marker
2. Spin the wheel.
3. Assign a person with a stopwatch to measure the time it takes the wheel to rotate 3 times.
4. Repeat measurements every 10 seconds, for at least 4 measurements.
5. Make a neat table showing your measurements.

Now, everyone will share the measurements. You must use them to answer these questions.

1. Compute the angular speed for each measurement, and write these values in a table.
2. Estimate the average angular acceleration during the experiment.
3. Compute the total angular displacement of the wheel from start to finish.
4. Pretend that during this experiment, the wheel had not been spinning horizontally, but was rolling down the hallway outside the classroom. Would it have reached the far end of the hallway?