Education Technology

Science: Forensics Case 12 - Hit and Run: Using information from an event data recorder to reconstruct an ac

by Texas Instruments

Overview

Students learn how distance traveled, velocity, and acceleration are related to one another and how the appearance of an acceleration, velocity, or distance vs. time graph can be used to predict the appearance of the other graphs. They show how accident scenes can be recreated through an analysis of the data that are gathered by an event data recorder (EDR).

Key Steps

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    Students use a toy truck speeding up and slowing down to make a distance-time graph. Then students relate this with the corresponding velocity-time graph in order to be able to analyze the graphs supplied by the suspects' cars.

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    The velocity-time graph made by a toy truck speeding up and slowing down to a stop is used by students to compare with the suspects' Event Data Recorder.