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Physics notebook Cambridge IGCSE 0625

Speed and motion graphs · 2 parts · syllabus 1.2

How can a graph tell the story of a journey?

Plan a motorised trolley’s journey from a target graph and run it in front of a motion sensor: its live distance–time line should land on the target. Then predict how far it goes from the area under a speed–time graph, and watch the area fill in.

Start learning Explore the experiment
A runner on a track at dawn, checking a watch; faint copies behind show where the runner was one, two and three seconds earlier, equally spaced. (enlarge)

Follow the idea

  1. The story of a journey

    Speed, velocity and average speed; reading distance–time graphs and finding speed from the gradient

    Not started

  2. The area under the line

    Speed–time graphs, and the distance travelled from the area under the line

    Not started
A motion sensor at the end of a long track sends pulses of ultrasound along the track to a card on the back of an orange trolley, and the echoes come back; a controller box lies on the bench in front.

The experiment · Plan the trolley’s journey · match the graph

Run it yourself, or project it for the class

Use the apparatus step by step and look closely at what happens. The whole experiment fits one screen, so it works on a projector too.

Open the experiment