I was thinking of what to do for my next physics post when I came home. As soon as the garage door opened, I realized that the answer was right in front of me! The garage door opening or closing demonstrates acceleration! Unfortunately, I can't find the acceleration without the elapsed time or the velocity, because the formula for acceleration is a=v/t. First, I took a video of the garage door closing and found that it took about 14 seconds to close completely. Then I took the height and found that it was about 8 feet, or 2.43 meters, since the door only went down, the displacement is also 2.43 meters. Using this information, I could find the velocity, v=2.43m/14s, v=.17 m/s. Since I have my velocity and my elapsed time, I can now find the acceleration of my garage door!
a=.17 m/s /14, a=.012 m/s^2. Wow, that's a fast door!
Using physics, I was able to discover the acceleration of my garage door. First, I needed to find the velocity, which was accomplished by finding the displacement (2.43m) and the time (14s). Then I was able to plug these numbers into the equation for acceleration.
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