Motion Diagrams II
Instantaneous Velocity
Instantaneous Velocity - velocity at a single moment in time
Fill In The Blanks Notes
Instantaneous Velocity
Velocity at a single moment in time
What is the velocity of the object at 6 seconds?
Ranking Task
Rank the accelerations from greatest to least.
Review
Try This at Home!
Show this to your young siblings or cousins. All you need is whole milk, food dye, and a Q-tip soaked in dish detergent.
Check Your Understanding
5 quick questions — pick an answer to see if you’re right.
1. What is instantaneous velocity?
2. How do you find instantaneous velocity from a curved displacement vs. time graph?
3. A tangent line drawn at t = 6 s passes through (2 s, 1 m) and (10 s, 5 m). What is the velocity at 6 s?
4. What does a car's speedometer display?
5. On a curved displacement vs. time graph, the tangent slope is 1 m/s at 2 s and 3 m/s at 6 s. The object is...
Skateboarder on a Ramp
A strobe camera photographed a skateboarder rolling down a straight ramp, starting from rest. The camera flashed every 0.50 second. Diagram 1 shows the skateboarder’s position at each flash.
Diagram 1: Motion Diagram (one dot every 0.50 s)
Which statement best describes the skateboarder’s motion?
▶ Want a challenge? Open 6 more Regents-style questions (harder · mixed formats)
Challenge score: 0 / 6
C1. A student makes the following claim.
Place a check mark in either the Support or Refute box. Justify your response using a mathematical relationship.
C2. How can the skateboarder’s instantaneous velocity at 2.0 s be found from a position–time graph?
C3. At 2.5 s, the skateboarder is 6.25 m from her starting point. Substitute numerical values into a mathematical representation that can be used to determine her acceleration. Then calculate the acceleration.
C4. The skateboarder’s acceleration is 2.0 m/s². Determine her speed at the moment of the 1.5-s flash.
C5. At the bottom, the skateboarder rolls onto rough pavement and slows to a stop. Which motion diagram represents this part of the motion (motion is to the right)?
C6. The skateboarder repeats the run on a steeper ramp, again starting from rest, with the camera still flashing every 0.50 s. Describe how the new motion diagram would differ from Diagram 1, and explain why.
