Constant Velocity Vs. Constant Acceleration

The purpose of the lab that our class recently did with the marble is to physically be able to observe the difference in constant velocity and constant acceleration. Constant velocity means that something is rolling with not only constant speed but also in a constant direction. This means that, like the marble, the object is going the same amount of distance for each unit of time. For example, a car is driving in a straight line at 60 miles per hour (meaning it has constant velocity) constant velocity tells us that for every hour the car will go 60 miles, as long as it maintains its speed and direction. Constant acceleration, on the other hand, is when the car is getting faster at a constant rate. This is a little harder to understand than constant velocity, but it's a similar concept. If something, like the marble we used in the lab, is traveling with constant acceleration, it means that it will travel a farther distance than it did before for each unit of time. For example, if a car is speeding up with a constant acceleration of 5 miles per hour and it was originally going 40 miles per hour, it means that in the first hour it will travel 40 miles, the next it will travel 45, the next 50, and so on.
The way that me and my partner conducted this lab was, first, we drew a starting line for the marble. After the timer was turned on and we went through a few practice rounds, we rolled the ball at a constant speed and marked its place each time the timer sounded with chalk (so each second). After we managed to do this in a straight line, we measured the distance between each chalk mark and recorded what we found. We did this once on a flat table and once with the table raised on one side. Looking at each line, it was clear to see that the flat table displayed constant velocity and the table with the raised side displayed constant acceleration. This is because the flat table had an equal distance in between each chalk marking where as the raised table had more distance than the last between each chalk mark. After getting all of our information we put it into a chart on excel and graphed it. From there you could also clearly see the difference between velocity and acceleration because the graph of velocity was a straight line and the graph of the acceleration was a curve.
What I found out about how constant acceleration and constant velocity compare is that you can not have both at the same time. Because constant velocity implies constant speed, and constant acceleration implies speeding up at a certain rate, you can not have them both, ever. I also discovered that even though you can not have both, they are someone similar in that they are both a pattern. They are different in that constant velocity is one speed and therefore had a graph with a straight line and constant acceleration is changing speed therefore the graph is a curve.
The formulas used for constant acceleration are as follows; if you want to find how fast something with constant velocity goes you can use v (velocity) equals d (distance) divided by t (time). If you want to find out how far something with constant velocity goes you can simply rearrange that equation and get d (distance) equals v(velocity) times t(time). When it comes to acceleration, if you want to find out how fast something is going you use v(velocity, or speed) equals a (acceleration rate) times t (time). If you want to find out how far something with constant acceleration goes you can use the equation d (distance) equals one half a (acceleration) times t (time) squared. In that order, this is what the equations should look like:
-v=d/t
-d=vt
-v=at
-d=1/2at^2
The graphs that we found at the end of our lab by putting in all of our information showed a lot about constant velocity and acceleration. The graph of constant velocity was a straight upward line where as the graph of constant acceleration was an upward curve. The constant velocity graph was a straight line because nothing was changing. The only thing that was happening to the marble in this graph was that as more time went on more distance was gained. The constant acceleration graph, on the other hand, was a curve upward. This is because the speed was varying and as more time went on more distance was gained between each second.
The way we used the graph to help support the information that we found was we plugged the information in and got an equation out. This equation could be lined up with the equation v=d/t (the equation used to find how fast something goes with constant velocity). When we plugged both a distance and time in, both equations gave us almost identical answers. This meant that we had gotten near perfect data and that the marble was in fact rolling with constant acceleration or, in the other case, constant velocity.
A few important things that I learned from this lab that will help me for the future are, first of all, the different formulas. These will help a lot with finding the velocity and acceleration of objects in the future. Another thing I learned was that finding accurate data is a must because otherwise you can not actually understand what you are doing. The last important thing that I learned through this lab is that physics really can be applied to everyday life, even if you don't see it at first.