Ticker-tape examples

Constant velocity motion

When the dots are equally spaced, it shows that the truck moves equal distances in equal intervals of time. This is called constant velocity motion. If you plot a graph of the total distance travelled against time for constant velocity motion, it gives a straight line with a constant slope.

To find the truck's speed, divide the distance between two dots by the time interval. If you plot a graph of the speed between consecutive pairs of dots against time it gives a horizontal line. The points on the graph may not lie exactly on the line because of experimental errors, but you can estimate the truck's speed by drawing the best straight line
that lies closest to all the points.