Free Fall Lab

Free Fall Lab

By Josue Luna and Ricardo Gonzalez

March 1, 2017 

Statement: Gravity falls at 9.8 m/s^2 when all other external forces are absence. 

Introduction: This lab we used an apparatus to measure an object fall from a height of 1.5 meters. The object falling from the apparatus produced spark at around 60 Hz on a piece of paper. We measure the dots on the paper to see the distance travel in those intervals. 

Procedure: 

This is apparatus we used to measure the free fall of object. The professor used this machine to collect the data. The way this apparatus collects data is by having a piece of paper on the side as an object falls along the piece of paper. The object falling produces a sparks which marks the piece of paper as it falls. 

Data: 

  

The data shown on the top picture shows the distance travel between each interval. The top graph shows mid-interval speed(m/s) vs time(s) graph. The second graph shows the distance(m) vs time(s) graph. 

Explanation of the graph:  The top graph is explaining the fall speed of the object which came out 9.5 m/s which is a little below 9.8 m/s. The way we got 9.5 is by getting the mid points of the positions of the data. We plot these numbers into logger pro and got a graph which gives the slope and the slope is the acceleration due to gravity. The bottom graph gives the change of position over time and this graph shows the object's acceleration increasing over time. 

Relationship Between Mass and Period and an Inertial Balance

Physics Lab 

Statement: The purpose of the lab is find the mass of an object by using an inertial balance.

Introduction: Students will try to find an unknown mass by using inertial pendulum. Students will measure the different oscillation periods with know masses and then measure the unknown mass. 

Procedure: Students will use inertial pendulum which is shown on the right. Students will collect data from the pendulum by using logger pro. The data that is being collect is the period of oscillation of the pendulum. Students will place weight at the end of pendulum this will cost the period of oscillation to increase as more weight is added. 

Data:

This data shows the mass at 280 grams.

This shows the weight at 300 grams.


This data table has the maximum value for the weight on the pendulum of 320 grams.

The data calculations


Summary of the day is we measure the oscillation of the inertial balance with different weights.We recorded the data and plot a graph to determined the mass of the tray as it was unknown. We guess a mass that would produce a correlation close to .9999 to make sure we were close to the mass of the tray.