Question: What is the best car?

End Product: Presentation in front of the class on the good and bad points of your favourite car.

Objectives - To understand the Physics behind how a car moves and it's safety features

Timing - Up to 16 lessons

Distance, Speed and Velocity

Objectives - To understand the Physics behind how a car moves and it's safety features

Timing - Up to 16 lessons

Go to www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize or http://kent.skoool.co.uk/keystage4.aspx?id=318 - no. 2 or the "Forces and Motion" section of http://www.gcse.com/physics.htm or http://www.gcse.com/forces.htm, or http://target.raf.mod.uk/Students/Maths/trish/default.asp

and write down the formula for calculating speed. What are the units of speed? What does speed mean? What's the difference between speed and velocity?

Now use these sites to find out what acceleration is, the formula for it and the units. How can you change acceleration without changing speed? Think about the difference between speed and velocity.

Also use these sites to learn how to represent different journeys on distance-time and speed/velocity-time graphs - make sure you know what horizontal lines and lines with different gradients mean. What is the formula for acceleration? What are the units? How can you find the speed from the gradient of a distance-time graph? How can you find distance travelled and acceleration from a velocity-time graph? (You will study more about speed next year).

Your teacher will set up a datalogging activity where members of the form will have to try and follow a speed-time graph projected onto a screen, by moving in the correct manner towards and away from a motion sensor.

Try the questions on the following sheets:

"Distance, Speed and Time"

"Distance and Speed Graphs"