Republic of the Philippines

Aurora State College of Technology

Zabali Baler, Aurora

Physics Laboratory

Name:___________________________________ Date:_____________
Year and Section:__________________________ Ratings:___________

Experiment 3: Motion along a Straight Line

1. Objectives
 The objective of this laboratory activity is to measure the acceleration of a falling
object assuming that the only force acting on the object is the gravitational force.
 Learn about a free body diagram and observe Newton’s law in action.
 Understand concepts of instantaneous and average speeds and measure them
using a photogate;
 Measure acceleration;
 Find momentum and its possible conservation during collisions;

2. Equipment
 Linear air track with blower and trolley
 Meter stick
 Free Fall apparatus
 Metal balls of different sizes
 Clamp Support Rod
 Photogate

3. Procedure
 For this activity, the free fall apparatus will measure the time of fall for steel balls
of different sizes and mass.
 Using meter stick, you will directly measure the height of the balls.
 The air blower is turned on. Turn on the air blower only when required. Do not
keep the blower on for more than ten minutes. This will prevent overheating
and damage to the blower. The experiments are brief and should be briskly
conducted. The blower should be turned off during the data analysis stage.
 The air track level is adjusted with the help of leveling screws at the bottom of the
track. When the track is balanced, a glider will not appreciably move on either
direction.
 4. The experiment
- 1st experiment
 The experimental setup comprising the air track connected with an air blower and
a pulley affixed on its edge. The glider is a V-shaped metal frame that glides on
the air cushion.
 Each glider has two flags attached on its edges. Their motion is detected with the
help of photogates which are connected to a Physlogger, a data logging device.
 During its motion, when glider passes through the inverted U shaped arms of the
photogate, the Physlogger detects two rectangular pulses, one when the flag at the
entering edge of the glider passes through the photogate and second flag at the
leaving edge passes through the photogate.
nd
- 2 Experiment
 Attach the right angle clamp to a vertical support rod. Mount the free fall
apparatus release mechanism horizontally in the clamp.
 Place the free fall adapter’s timing pad on the floor directly below the release
mechanism.
 Place a larger ball in the release mechanism. Press the spring-loaded rod inward to
hold the ball in the mechanism, and tighten the thumbscrew to hold the rod in
place.
 Adjust the position of the release mechanism so the bottom of the ball is
approximately 1.75 meters above the timing pad.
 Practice dropping the ball a few times before taking data.

Experiment using the linear air track

Let's do a basic exercise of detecting a signal when the glider passes through the
photogates,
1. Place photogate A 45 cm away from the left edge of air track and photogate B 100 cm
away from photogate A.
2. Connect photogate A to channel 1 of Physlogger and photogate B to channel 2 of
Physlogger.
3. Starting from the extreme left, slightly push the glider by hand and let it cruise to the
right end. First this glider will intercept photogate A and at some later time photogate B.
4. For example, Physlogger's channel 1 will show two rectangular pulse signals when the
glider intercepts Photogate A. Likewise, two pulses will be detected for photogate B and
displayed on Channel 2. The two pulses correspond to the flags on the glider. You are provided
with measuring rules to measure the lengths and mutual distances between these flags.

Idea Experiments
1. Measure speeds and finding their uncertainties: Using a single slider move across the
air track, measure the speeds of the (a) flags, and the (b) glider on the locations of the two
photogates placed 100 cm apart. In this experiment, you can find the speed of a flag by
measuring, say, t2 – t1 and the speed of a glider by measuring t3 – t1 or t4 – t2. Other
schemes are also possible.
 - In which of these quantities do you see the largest variation?
- ______________________________________________________________
- What's a more precise estimate of the speed of the glider?
- ______________________________________________________________
- Are these speeds measures of instantaneous or average speeds?
- _______________________________________________________________
2. Average speeds: Find the average speed of a glider between locations A and B. There are
different time intervals you could use for determining the average speed. Recognize these
various methods and estimate the average speed. Discuss with your instructor.
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3. Energy and momentum losses:
- How does the momentum and the energy of the slider decay as it makes multiple
round trips on the air track?
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- Connect the rubber bands on the end bumpers on both ends for this part of the
experiment. Could you plot these energy and momentum losses and explain the origin
of these losses?
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- How do the speeds and momentums change when two gliders collide with one
another? Is the collision elastic?
- _____________________________________________________________________
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4. Acceleration and free body diagram: Measure the mass m of the glider with the
provided weigh balance. Tie a thread to the neck of a flag that is attached to the glider on
the end closest to the end-pulley. Attach a weight M to the weight hanger and hang it to
the end of the thread which passes over the pulley. Adjust the length of the thread and the
location of the photogates such that that when the weight M is at its highest location, the
glider finds the opportunity to intersect both the photogates in the weight's downward
descent. Measure the average acceleration (a) of the glider. Repeat the experiment a few
times with the same mass M. Subsequently, repeat for different masses M.
- Draw a free body diagram for the hanging weight and the glider, showing the tension
in the string and the acceleration of the objects.
- Derive a formula showing the relationship between m, M and a.
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- Does your experimental data verify this relationship? Draw a graph to elaborate your
findings.
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- Can you modify your formula to elicit a linear relationship? Finally, estimate the
value of the acceleration due to gravity g deduced from your data.
- _____________________________________________________________________
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Experiment using the Free Fall apparatus

1. Place the desired size of ball in the release mechanism. Adjust the position of the release
mechanism so the bottom of the ball is 1.50 meters above the timing pad. Measure the
distance from the bottom of the ball to the top of the timing pad. Record this height in
Data table.
2. Click the “Start” button to begin data recording.
3. Loosen the thumbscrew to release the ball.
4. After the ball hits the timing pad, click “Keep”. Record your height and time.
5. Once again place the ball in the release mechanism. Adjust the position of the release
mechanism so the bottom of the ball is 1.70 meters above the timing pad. Measure the
height between the ball and the pad and record it in the Free Fall Data Table.
6. When you are ready to record the next drop, loosen the thumbscrew to release the ball.
7. After the ball hits the pad, click “Keep”. Record the height and time in the data table
below.
8. Replace the ball in the mechanism. Move the mechanism so the bottom of the ball is
approximately 1.65 meters from the top of the timing pad. Measure and record the height.
9. Loosen the thumbscrew to release the ball.
10. After the ball hits the timing pad record your height and time in the table below.
11. Repeat the process for heights of approximately 1.60 and 1.55 meters.
12. Click “Stop” at the end of all runs.

Data Table:
Trial Height (m) Time (sec)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Acceleration due to gravity (g) = ________________

% difference:_______________________
Note: % difference = [(accepted value – experimental value) / accepted value] x 100%

Experiment Questions
 1. How does your value for ‘g’ compare to the accepted value of the acceleration of a free
falling object (9.81 m/s²).
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2. What factors do you think may cause the experimental value to be different from the
accepted value?
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Reference
https://www.physlab.org/facility/physlogger/