Inclined Planes

By Courtney and Stefan

Inclined planes make life easier. An example of an inclined plane is a ramp. Some inclined planes are wedges, screws, ramps, levers, and a staircase. You use less force but have to travel a greater distance on an inclined plane. If you have a really steep ramp and you wanted to put something in a truck it would be harder to roll it up. You should use a shallow ramp if you wanted to roll something into a truck.

 

We did an experiment. We used two small sized boxes and attached them with string. Then on one side of the desk we put box A and on the other box B. Box B was on the ground with a heavy ball of string in it. We put weights in box A to see if it would pull up box B. It took 170 g. Then we used a very steep ramp that was called ramp A and it reduced the amount of weights needed to 165g. Then ramp B was used. It was not as steep as ramp A and it needed 130 g. We used ramp C, the shallowest ramp. We used 92 g. The shallower the ramp, less amount of force was needed to lift box B up off the ground.

A ramp is a good example of an inclined plane.

 

 

 

Index ] Levers ] Screws ] Wedges ] [ Inclined Planes ]

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