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Projectile Motion Experiment 1

1) Projectile motion describes the trajectory of objects in flight under the influence of gravity. Galileo was the first to accurately describe projectiles moving in parabolic paths with gravity as the only force. 2) This experiment aims to determine the acceleration due to gravity using projectile motion. Steel balls were rolled down an inclined rail from various heights and their ranges and times were recorded. 3) The results were plotted on a graph of range squared versus 2*height*time squared. The slope of the best fit line gave a value of 8.4 m/s2 for g, close to the accepted 9.81 m/s2 but lower likely due to friction and air resistance.

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480 views

Projectile Motion Experiment 1

1) Projectile motion describes the trajectory of objects in flight under the influence of gravity. Galileo was the first to accurately describe projectiles moving in parabolic paths with gravity as the only force. 2) This experiment aims to determine the acceleration due to gravity using projectile motion. Steel balls were rolled down an inclined rail from various heights and their ranges and times were recorded. 3) The results were plotted on a graph of range squared versus 2*height*time squared. The slope of the best fit line gave a value of 8.4 m/s2 for g, close to the accepted 9.81 m/s2 but lower likely due to friction and air resistance.

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INTRODUCTION

Projectile motion could be defined as the motion of an object launched at


a certain speed and then subjected only to the constant acceleration of gravity.
Real-world examples are everywhere: bullets shot from guns, erasers hurled
across classrooms, basketballs thrown into hoops, bottles tossed into garbage
cans, pianos flung by trebuchets.
Projectile motion is a good subject for study because it describes a lot of
real-world situations, and because the math involved is not especially difficult.
To keep the math from becoming difficult, we make a few reasonable
assumptions.
Galileo was the first person who accurately described projectile motion.
Because of the drawings of Niccolo Tartaglia, Galileo realized that a projectile
followed a curved path which is called a parabola. It was later found out by
Galileo that the parabola has an exact mathematical shape. Also, he stated that
a projectile was acted upon by two forces, vertical and horizontal. The vertical
force was from gravity, which pulled it to Earth at 9.8 m/s. That is why a
parabola is a precise mathematical equation.
The foremost of these assumptions is that gravity is the only force acting
on the projectile.
In particular, we assume that there is no air resistance. That's a reasonable
assumption, as long as the projectile is fairly dense and is not moving too fast
through the air. It breaks down if the projectile isn't dense enough (e.g. a loose
wad of paper flung across a room) or if it's moving far and fast enough to make
air resistance a serious effect (e.g. an artillery shell fired a long distance at
supersonic speed). These effects should not be a problem in this lab.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the acceleration due to gravity, g using motion method.

THEORY
From the law of the conservation energy, the potential energy of a body of
mass, m equals to its kinetic energy and is given by:
1 (1)
= 2
2

Where m = the mass of the object


g = the acceleration due to the gravity
h = the height of the body
= the velocity of the body

A body which is moving in a projectile motion with a velocity of will have a


range of:

= (2)

Where is the horizontal component of the velocity (see in Figure 1)

Combining equation (1) and (2), we obtain:

2
= (3)
2 2

Where t is time taken for the body from the end of the curve track to reach the
ground.

steel ball
Figure 1

h
steel ball vx
curved railing
projectile
motion

horizontal table

drawing paper steel ball


pendulum bob
Procedure:
1. Set up the apparatus as shown in Figure 1.
2. Slide the steel ball on the curve railing from 8 different heights, h and record
the values of R and t.
3. Plot a graph of R2 against 2ht2 and calculate the value of g from the table and
graph.

RESULT

Height, Range, R (m) Time, t (s)


No R2 T2 2ht2
h (m) R1 R2 R3 R T1 T2 T3 T

1 0.05 0.307 0.307 0.302 0.305 0.51 0.72 0.70 0.64 0.0930 0.41 0.041

2 0.10 0.459 0.456 0.464 0.460 0.51 0.47 0.46 0.48 0.2116 0.23 0.046

3 0.15 0.538 0.552 0.573 0.554 0.51 0.45 0.43 0.46 0.3069 0.21 0.063

4 0.20 0.642 0.666 0.668 0.659 0.42 0.41 0.49 0.44 0.4343 0.19 0.076

5 0.25 0.740 0.743 0.728 0.737 0.42 0.42 0.43 0.42 0.5432 0.18 0.09

6 0.30 0.828 0.820 0.802 0.817 0.40 0.41 0.43 0.41 0.6675 0.17 0.102

7 0.35 0.882 0.892 0.847 0.874 0.40 0.42 0.39 0.40 0.7639 0.16 0.114

8 0.40 0.871 0.880 0.854 0.868 0.38 0.41 0.39 0.39 0.7540 0.15 0.124
DATA ANALYSIS

R2 vs 2ht2
0.9
Graph 1.0

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5
R2

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
2ht2
CALCULATION :
By using this this formula below, we can obtain the gravity based on the gradient of the
straight line from the graph above.

2
=
2 2

Find the gradient for the best line.

2 1
= g =
2 1
0.70 0.28
= 0.110.06

= 8.4ms-2.
DICUSSION

The experiment was carried out to investigate the relationship between


acceleration due to gravity, 9.81 ms-2. We managed to obtain all the data by
doing all the procedures as followed. Graph 1.0 was constructed based from the
data table in order to obtain the gradient from the straight line which is being
used to calculate the gravity. In this experiment, 8 different heights were set by
using the curved railing to let the steel ball rolls down to the landing surface.
The stopwatch was started when the steel ball reached at the end of the curved
track and being stopped immediately after it reached the landing surface (carbon
paper and drawing paper). All the observations were recorded in the table.
From the data table, it shows the velocity for each height is not constant.
This is because the time and acceleration values for each height where the steel
ball released were different. Because acceleration is the rate of change of
velocity per unit of time, the velocity was changing,
2 not constant. The time
=
value would get smaller and the acceleration value would increase as the
2 2
curvature railing got steeper. Also, while going down the curved railing, the ball
changed its velocity. Therefore at each height, the velocity values were different
and the velocity changed as the ball travelled down the curved railing.
As the calculation has been made, it can be found that the acceleration
due to gravity is 8.4 ms-2, which was slightly different with the theoretical value
for acceleration due to gravity which is 9.81 ms-2. The slight different might be
caused by the air resistance and frictional force between curvature railing and
the steel ball. The experiment can be said as successful because the difference
between theoretical value of acceleration due gravity was small.
To ensure the observation of the data is more correct, the experiment
needs to be repeated for three times to find the average value. Thus, the
accuracy of the value obtained will be prcised. Besides that, in order to reduce
the error, our eyes must be perpendicular to the scale in order to avoid parallax
error. Besides that, we must make sure the curvature railing was straight to
ensure that the ball can slide in a straight line. The stopwatch needs to be
stopped immediately after the steel ball reached the ground because the timing
might not accurate and this will affect the calculation as a result a wrong value
of gravity will be obtained.

CONCLUSION

From the experiment, it can be concluded that the acceleration of the steel
ball is affected by the gravity which is 9.8 m/s2, but we did not obtain the
precise value of the gravity because based from the data and calculation had
been made our acceleration due to gravity is 8.4 m/s2. Also, the mass of the steel
ball was kept constant thus it did not affect the acceleration. We also know that
the relationship between the acceleration and the different height of the ball
released from the curved railing, which are directly proportional to each other.
We found this by increasing the height in each experiment and timing each run
to see if the time it took for the ball to roll down the curved railing is shorter,
which it was. In other words, the higher the height of the ball released, the faster
the acceleration, and the closer it gets to 9.8 m/s2. Overall, while we were not
entirely accurate with our hypotheses, we completed our objectives, and learned
from both our results and our mistakes.

REFERENCE
Sources
Book:
Fendt, Walter. Projectile motion. 9/13/200, 8/30/2006
http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph11e/projectile.htm
Internet:
https://podcast.punxsy.k12.pa.us/groups/laineyswiki/revisions/1aeda/17/
http://honorsphysicsrocks.wikispaces.com/

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