Finding the Force of Friction

In today's class we went over yesterday's blog post and then proceeded to come up with various experiments that we could do to measure the limiting static friction of a cart. Limiting static friction is the maximum value of the force of friction which occurs just before the object begins to move. We came up with various different experiments to find the limiting static friction:
- Using different masses on the cart.
- Testing the cart on different surfaces.
- Pulling the cart up an incline.
- Pulling the wooden block down an incline.
We also tested the frictional force of two separate sides of a box to determine whether surface area affects the force of friction. In addition, we were to determine the coefficient of static friction for the green cart and the black cart and compare the two values. The values of limiting static friction were very low for the cart, increasing as weight or angle increased, and also increasing on rougher surfaces.

The sled would have low limiting static friction due to the smooth texture of the sled and it's light weight.
Casey is next!