CENCO® AP Physics Lab 1.02: Constant vs. Non-Constant Speed

Analyze the displacement of an object with constant velocity and an object that is accelerating.

Introducing the new CENCO AP Physics lab series!

Ideal for AP Physics 1 and 2, AP Physics C, IB DP Physics, and advanced/honors physics courses, each of the 35 experiments is aligned with the revised College Board AP curriculum. These innovative labs go way beyond traditional exercises, turning real-world scenarios into true guided-inquiry investigations. Students are given a goal, but the investigation is driven by their ideas. As they draw conclusions, students report their results using the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning model. The teacher guides and student manuals are authored and reviewed by AP Physics teachers with decades of combined experience, so you can trust the setups to be successful in your classroom. All labs come complete with instructions and materials for one lab group of 2-4 students. For your convenience, labs are packaged to allow you to purchase only what is required for each experiment.

Many introductory velocity labs require students to determine the average velocity of an object by measuring the time it takes for the object to travel an arbitrary distance, but part 1 of this investigation requires students to evaluate a manufacturer’s claim that a popular physics tool travels at a constant velocity. Part 2 of this unique investigation juxtaposes the students’ constant velocity observations with similar measurements of an object that is known to be accelerating. Students practice graph linearization to determine the mathematical relationship, an important AP Physics skill.