Conclusion (with shelbs)

Overall, we found that momentum WAS conserved. In each scenario, disregarding friction and small human error, we found that the momentum we gave the car at the beginning of each scenario was conserved throughout the trial. Although the air track is not completely frictionless, it is good to test collisions over small distances. In each scenario, we tested the conservation of momentum equation. Since the masses of the cars were slightly different but taken to be the same, we realized the only variable was there velocities. Thus, theoretically the cars should
switch velocities after collidding. Our data, despite being slightly skewed, due to friction and the small differences in mass and length in the cars, proves this theory. There were no surprising results because we thought the velocities would be slightly different, due to the small differences in mass and length the cars had, and also due to friction. Possible sources of error include friction (slowing down the velocities of the cars after the collisions), diffferences in mass and length of the cars (affecting the velocity changes), and human reaction time (pushing the cars at different speeds). If we could have a longer track with less friction, we would be able to measure these results more accurately because human reaction time would be virtually negligible. Overall this experiment proved our theory.