PASCO ME-9812 Roller Coaster - Manual (Page 11)

Roller Coaster Model No. ME-9812
10 ®
to help keep them from
slipping off the car.
The bumpers are also used
to couple two or three cars
together for a roller coaster
train. To accomplish this,
put rubber bands on the
bumpers to make elastic
bumpers. Then place the
pointed front bumper of
the trailing car over the
rubber band of the car in
front of it, letting it fit loosely into the "V" slot of the leading car (see
Figure 11).
3. Photogate Flag for Timing and Acceleration Studies
The photogate flag
fits into a slot on
either the left or
right side of the
car. The flag has
two tabs to allow
timing from one
block of the
photogate beam to
the next block.
When using a
photogate, connect
the photogate
stereo plug to a ME-8930 Smart Timer and vertically adjust the
photogate so that the slit on the photogate aligns with the bottom of the
gap on the flag (see Figure 9). When the car passes through the
photogate beam, the photogate measures the time from the leading
edge on the front tab of the flag to the leading edge on the back tab of
the photogate flag.
Figure 9: Car
with photogate
flag moving
toward a
photogate
flag
Smart Timer
Photogate
Figure 8: V-slot on the bumper
V-slot
Note: When using a
Smart Timer to measure
the speed of the car,
select the “speed” mea-
surement and “1 gate”
mode. To measure accel-
eration of the car, select
the “accel” measure-
ment and “2 gates” (use
two photogates on adja-
cent pegs). Click the
Start button. When the
asterisk appears on the
display, you are ready to
take a measurement.