| Newtons Laws |
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| 1) An object in motion remains in motion, or an object at rest remains at rest unless acted upon by an equal and opposite force. When the lander is dropped from above the stairs, gravity acts as the outside force that causes it to start rolling down, until the stairs and/or the wall acts as the opposite force which brings it to rest. Since the egg itself is not actually connected to lander, but rather concealed in a cage that is attatched, the egg will not always be affected by the stopping force. Therefore, the egg will continue to move until it hits the stairs and/ or the wall and breaks. The lander is designed so that the egg will go along with whatever forces are acting upon the lander, while remaining in the straw cage hooked to the lander shell. The rubberbands that are attached to the hooks on the inside of the shell help keep the cage from ejecting from the lander by stretching and bringing the cage and the egg to rest. 2) The relationship between an object's mass (m), it accceleration (a), and the applied force (F) is F=ma Since the lander has a mass of 590 grams and an acceleration of 9.8 m/s/s (gravity) , the Force applied is 590 x 9.8, which means the lander has a force of 5782 Newtons. 3) For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction When the lander hits the stairs and/or the wall it bounces up and down (several times usually) until it wobbles into a resting postion on the base (bottom). The first bounce is the greatest because this is when the lander has the most energy, but because of friction, the lander loses energy and the bounces subside until the lander comes to a complete stop. |
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| At 0 seconds the lander is about .1 meters away from the motion detector, then at .3 seconds the lander is dropped, and continues to gain velocity as it falls, continue to excert an acceleration of 9.8 m/s/s, which is gravity. At .85, the lander has its peak velocity, which is 4.886 m/s. When it hits the gounds, the lander is a little less than 2 meters from the motion detector. When it stops, the velocity becomes zero and the distance from the motion detector remains unchanged. |