Motion and Speed Activity

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Kinematic Attic Notebook : Motion & Speed

Motion and Speed

We move in real life, and we move here in Whyville too, even though we have no legs. What is motion? How do you measure it? When we measure the motion of a car, a sprinter, a horse, a plane, etc., we're measuring its speed.

Speed can be defined as the amount of time it takes to complete a task. For example, the speed at which a car travels is determined by two numbers: the amount of time it took the car to complete a certain distance. The two numbers are the time and the distance. The phrase "45 miles per hour" means something takes one hour to move a distance of 45 miles. In other words, it's moving at a speed that will allow it to complete 45 miles in one hour. Another example of speed is the amount of time it takes you to run the length of a basketball court, or any other distance.

Try this activity with a friend:

Activity 1: Speed in the Real World

Materials:

1 stopwatch
Masking tape
1 tape measure

Procedure:

Print out two copies of this table, one for yourself and one for your friend.
Find a space that's wide open, where you can run around safely, like a playground, your school gym, or your backyard.
Use a piece of masking tape about 30 cm (~12 inches) long to mark off the starting line.
Use the tape measure to measure off 10 meters (~33 feet), and mark this with another piece of masking tape. This is your finish line.
The runner stands at the start line.
The timer says, "Ready, set, go!" and starts the timer.
On "go", the runner starts running to the finish line.
The timer stops the stopwatch when the runner crosses the finish line.
Record your data in the table you printed out. The time is the one recorded by your stopwatch. The distance is 10 meters.
Repeat 4 through 8 four times for a total of 5 lines of data.
Alternate roles and collect another 5 lines of data.
Calculate the speed of each trial by dividing the distance (10 meters) by the time.
Contribute your experience and thoughts in the following BBS threads!

BBS questions:

Activity 2: Speed in Whyville

Now, you're ready to do the same experiment in Whyville. Instead of running distances measured in feet or meters, in Whyville we measure distances by pixels. So, your speeds will be expressed in pixels per second.

Read this page to find out where you can go to make measurements in Whyville. This page will also tell you how to use a ruler and a stopwatch in Whyville.
After each trial, be sure you record your data by saying
record username ran x pixels in t seconds
This means, if your friend Jen covered 300 ruler units in 3.5 seconds, you'll record this data by saying
record Jen ran 300 pixels in 3.5 seconds.
When you've done a few trials and feel like taking a break, come back to this notebook and use the Data tab at the top to view your data.
In the Data tab, you will find instructions for calculating the speed for each line of data and contribute your findings to the Kinematic Attic's collaborative graph.
To check out the collaborative graph and see what it tells you about the secret behind running fast in Whyville, you can either click directly on the graph on the wall or use the Graph tab in this notebook.

Have fun!