Stanford Engineering
Dynamic Design Lab

Classroom Asset: Testing Constant Acceleration

On June 26, 2019, the DDL team tested the constant acceleration formulas by programming X1 to start with an initial velocity of v0 = 3 m/s and maintain a constant acceleration of a = 1 m/s2.  In the video, v is measuring the speed of the car while s is measuring the distance traveled. The red graph is a prediction of what the car will do while the blue graph is measuring what the car is actually doing.  The small difference between the graphs is due to an increasing drag force as the car accelerates.

This test is part 1 of a 3 part test which includes:

Variables:

  • Time: t_s
    Measured in seconds from the moment of acceleration.  The data starts at t = -5 seconds. 
  • Speed of car: speed_mps
    Measured in meters/second.
  • Acceleration of car: acc_mps2
    Measured in meters/second2

Data collected can be found in the files below.

  • constaccdata.mat - Matlab file with 100 measurements/second for 29 seconds (5 seconds of ramp-up, 24 seconds of the test)
  • constaccdata.xlsx - Excel file with 1 measurement/second for 29 seconds
  • constaccdata.csv - CSV file with 1 measurement/second for 29 seconds

Video: