Physics IA - unworkable data? A desperate call for help!!

[Sheepsie]

Hey everyone, I hate to be that person but I think I may have completely screwed myself over with the "topic" I chose. I wanted to do something that involved magnetic braking, designed a lab, did all my data collection, and just now I'm realizing I may have gotten completely unworkable data.

So my question is: Is there any hope of salvaging this? And quickly? (The IA was meant to be due today but I couldn't come up with anything even after a whole weekend of work,)

I based my experiment around the idea that a conductive plane will oppose the motion of a magnetic field, generating drag of some sort (as according to Lenz Law). I basically fixed a neodymium magnet to the bottom of a cart and let it roll down a sheet of steel at different angles, then recorded its time vs. distance/velocity/acceleration data using Vernier cart picket fence & the motion probe. I also have sets of data for the cart rolling down an aluminum ramp, and a wooden ramp as a control.

The acceleration does seem slower when rolling down the steel, and even slower down the aluminum (it's thicker than the steel. I know, it's dumb, I didn't think to control the thickness of the metal so I can't use the material of the ramp as the independent.). Problem is, I don't know what I can do to process the data. I've tried calculating the braking force just using a free body diagram and F=ma but I've been getting strange numbers (a cosine function?? Maybe because the x-component of the gravitational acceleration is cos(theta)mg??)

Thank you so so much in advance for any kind of help! (Really, any kind of advice would be appreciated at this point T.T ) 

[Jaysun]

Forgive me if I misunderstood, but wouldn't your result come out to be a constant? Since you've fixed the angle of your ramp, can't you plug that into your cosine and get a numerical answer for force?

[Sheepsie]

Thank you so much for the reply, but I already handed in the Physics IA 😅 The angle was not fixed (it was my control variable), and I was investigating the influence that the angle had on the force of the drag exerted by the magnet. I was confused mostly because I thought I should have been proving some sort of established theory about magnetism, but I ended up basically using Newton's second law for everything haha... I did end up basically plugging the different angles into the cosine. I don't know if I'll get a good mark (i don't think I will  ) but at least I tried! 

Thanks again for the reply