Car Crash Analysis

In our first lab in Physics we taught a software called Logger Pro. This software allows us to be able to find the position, velocity, and acceleration of a given moving object when we have its dimensions. In our first project we are trying to find the position, velocity, and acceleration of a Mini Cooper colliding with a wall.
The dimensions of the mini was the distance from the front of the car to the center of the front wheel, the distance between the center of each front and back wheel, and the distance between the back center wheel and the rear of the car. We used these dimensions and took points of where a specific part of the car is at a given time.
I used this information to find out the position, velocity, and acceleration of the passenger during the crash. This ended up giving us a position verses time graph, the red circle line. The slope of that graph was -1.042 m/s we compared this number to our velocity vs time graph, the red triangle one, and we found the average of this graph. The average was -1.028m/s. This shows the relationship between the slope of the position vs time graph and the mean of the velocity vs time graph and how they both give the approximate velocity of the passenger. After we found this I needed to find the acceleration of the passenger, she was moving at a positive acceleration of 1.04 m/s/s. I know this because the acceleration of the passenger is the slope of the velocity graph after the car has hit the wall.


I have wanted to drive a mini cooper since I saw the movie The Italian Job. This movie made me want to go out and drive a mini cooper right away. After doing this project though I feel that a mini cooper is not a practical car to have. After doing all the necessary calculations to get to my conclusion for the velocity and acceleration to do the damage done to the car, it seems that the car is too easy to damage and that a wreck can cause just as much damage to the driver as to the vehicle itself.