Manipulate the speed formula to solve for distance or time, and understand how vehicles measure these values.
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Visual of a speedometer and odometer.
Vehicles use a speedometer to show instant speed and an odometer to record total distance travelled.
How to calculate distance or time when given the other variables.
We already know how to calculate speed if we have the distance and time. But what if we know the speed of an object and how long it has been travelling? We can rearrange the speed formula to find the missing information.
Walkthrough of calculating speed in m/s from km and mins.
Let us look at a real-world example from the textbook. Swati's school is 3.6 km from her house. It takes her 15 minutes to reach her school riding on her bicycle. How do we calculate the speed of the bicycle in the standard unit of m/s?
Practice calculating distance.
Raghav is going to a neighbouring city in a bus moving at a steady speed of km/h. He wants to know the total distance to his destination. If it takes him exactly hours to reach that city, we can easily calculate the distance. We use the rearranged formula where distance equals Speed multiplied by Time. By multiplying these two values, we find that the total distance covered by the bus is km.
Defining the tools vehicles use to measure motion.
You don't always have to calculate speed and distance manually! Vehicles like scooters, cars, and buses have built-in instruments on their dashboards that do the math for you automatically.