Free Fall

Pinya (Fai) 10-5

Objectives :
-To measure the acceleration of falling object
-To consider that the acceleration of free fall of an object depends on its mass or not
Hypothesis :
A graph in the velocity graph will increase or straight line up and the acceleration in the acceleration
graph always move in constant acceleration
Materials :
Power Macintosh of Windows PC Vernier Photogate
LabQuest interface Picket Fence
Logger Lite clamp or ring to secure Photogate
Procedure :
1. Fasten the Photogate rigidly to a ring stand so the arms extend horizontally. The entire length of the
Picket Fence must be able to fall freely through the Photogate. To avoid damaging the Picket Fence,
make sure it has a soft surface to land on.
2. Connect the Photogate to the DIG/SONIC 1 input of the request or the DG 1 input on the ULI.
3. Observe the reading on the screen of the LapQuest interface. Block the Photogate with your hand;
note that the Photogateis shown as blocked. Remove your hand and the display should change to
unblocked.
4. Open the file in the Experiment 5 folder of Physics with Computers. Two graphs will appear on the
screen. The top graph displays distance vs. time , and the lower graph velocity vs. time.
5. Click COLLECT to prepare the Photogate. Hold the top of the Picket Fence and drop it through the
Photogate, relating it from your grasp completely before it enters the Photogate. Be careful when
releasing the Picket Fence. It must not touch the sides of the Photogate as it falls and it needs to
remain vertical. Click STOP to end data collection.



6. Examine your graphs. The slope of a velocity vs. time graph is a measure of acceleration. If the
velocity graph is approximately a straight line of constant slope, the acceleration is constant. If the
acceleration of your Picket Fence appears constant, fit a straight to your data. To do this, select the
straight part of your data and use the linear fit function in the analyze menu of the Logger Lite.
Record the slope in the data table.
7. To establish the reliability of your measurement, repeat Steps 5 and 6 five more times. Do not use
drops i which the Picket Fence hits or misses the Photogate. Record the slope values in the data
table
Results :





Graph 1
Graph 1





















Table show the slope of each graph
Trial 1 2 3 4 5 6
slope (m/s) 9.759 9.757 9.797 9.767 9.689 9.72


Analysis :
Minimum Maximum Average
Acceleration (m/s
2
) 9.689 9.797 9.743
1.
2.The shape of the distance vs. time graph for the free fall show a straight line up.
3.The shape of velocity vs. time graph show a straight line up. This is related to the shape of the
distance vs. time graph that the velocity is constant and the distance is constant as well.



4.


5. g=gravity and it always equals to 9.8 . The value of g is in the range of my value.
6. The results agree with my original hypothesis and predictions because the results show that a graph
move in constant velocity.
Conclusion :
The results follow my prediction based on the hypothesis. Some of the errors led to the different results
for example, the picket fence hit the photogate or falling the picket fence in wrong method. I can
improve the experiment by falling carefully. The experiment about the gravity or acceleration.
















AAcceleration due to gravity, g
9.7 1.0 m/s
2