Fan Cart Acceleration

DCS Code: 1C20.38 Last Updated: March 27, 2026
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Purpose

A fan cart provides constant thrust on a level track, producing uniform acceleration. Equally-spaced position markers along the track let students observe that the cart passes successive markers more and more quickly — a direct, visible signature of constant acceleration.

PASCO fan cart with wooden propeller and guard ring on a black base, sitting on an aluminum dynamics track spanning two green demo tables, with yellow sticky-note markers numbered -5 to 5 hung at equal intervals along the track
Figure 1: Fan cart on a PASCO dynamics track with equally-spaced numbered markers. The cart accelerates uniformly under constant fan thrust, passing successive markers at shorter and shorter time intervals.