Investigating Ball Bearing Roll Down Slope Time

[alex_boothby]

hey, well I am doing a project and the title is 'investigating how the distnce traveled by a ball bearing rolling down a slope affects time taken' so basically how the distance of travel (independent variable) effects the time taken to reach the end of the ramp. and, the ball starts from rest each time. and we have been given a set of results with the distance from which it was released from and the time it took to reach the bottom of the ramp.
we were also given the angle of inclination = 5 degrees
mass of ball bearing= 0.0167g
diameter of ball bearing= 0.0153m


What i have done so far is worked out lots of values, what i have is, average speed at a certain distance, i.e 0.05 then 0.1, 0.15 etc. also have sqaure root of distance. speed squared, average accerlation at each certain distance, kinetic energy, potential energy, and speed at a certain distane (this is only correct assuming the accerleation is constant, i simply doubled it)

i have plotted graphs and realized that sqaure root of distance = time

i don't really no where to go from here, would it help if i sent you my excell spread sheet, i beleve trignomerty with vector diagrams must come into somewhere, i need to compare theoretical vaules to actual, as some will be lost to to resistive force, i also think an equation for circular motion may be relavent but i don't know much about it. please ask if any more information is needed.

thank you very much al.

 

[NateTG]

Do you know about free body diagrams?
Do you know about conservation of energy, and how to use it to predict the ball bearing's speed?

 

[alex_boothby]

no, not really, but i guess that's a hint to look into it. i shall google it