EricTyler

Tyler Samani & Eric Solomon
 * What is the Acceleration of a Falling Body?**

__Objective:__ Find the acceleration of a falling body.

__Hypothesis:__ As the body falls, it will pick up speed. The acceleration should be approximately 9.8 m/s^2. The acceleration of the body should be noticeable on the ticker tape. Using the points on the ticker tape, we should be able to make a Position vs. Time graph and calculate the rate at which the body is accelerating.

__Materials:__ Meter stick Ticker tape Spark timer Tape Weight Clamp

__Procedure:__


 * 1) Gather materials.
 * 2) Measure out approximately two meters of ticker tape.
 * 3) Clamp the spark timer to a cabinet door approximately two meters off the ground.
 * 4) Tape the ticker tape to the weight.
 * 5) Feed the ticker tape through the spark timer
 * 6) Start the spark timer and set it to 60 Hz.
 * 7) Drop the weight.
 * 8) Number the dots on the ticker tape.
 * 9) Measure the distance of all the dots on the ticker tape.
 * 10) Record the results in an Excel spreadsheet.
 * 11) Create a Position vs. Time graph with an appropriate title and x/y-axis.
 * 12) Use the graph to calculate the acceleration of the weight.

__Data:__ all numbers in a column should have same number of sig figs/decimal places. Also, units for position are wrong.



__Calculations:__

Percent Difference: where is class data? ( l Our Value - Class Average l / Class Average ) * 100 ( l 951.44 - 874.43 l / 874.43 ) * 100 ( 77.01 / 874.43 ) * 100 .088069 * 100 8.8069%

Percent Error:

( | Our Value - Theoretical Value | / Theoretical Value) *100 ( | 951.44 - 980. | / 980.) * 100 2.914% nice results

Discussion Questions:

1. Does the shape of your graph agree with the expected graph? Why or why not? Yes, for a Position-Time graph in which the velocity is increasing from zero, the shape should be an upward curve to the right.

2. How do your results compare to that of the class? (Use Percent difference to discuss quantitatively.) (See calculation above). Our data is actually more accurate than that of the rest of the class. The theoretical value for the equation should be 980cm/s^2. Our information dictated that the weight dropped at a speed of 951.44 cm/s^2. This, compared to the class avg. (874.43 cm/s^2), is significantly closer to the theoretical value. We were 8.069% off from the class, but only 2.914% off of the expected value.

3. Did the object accelerate uniformly? How do you know? Yes, the object did accelerate in a uniform manner. We know this because of the r^2 value on the graph. It is equal to one, which means that the information is precise.

4. What should the velocity-time graph of this object look like? It should be a straight line going up and to the right.

5. Write down the expected equation of the line from this v-t graph (use specific information from your x-t graph). y = 951.44x

6. What factor(s) would cause acceleration due to gravity to be higher than it should be? Lower than it should be? If the falling object were somehow given a downward push, then the acceleration due to gravity would be higher than it should be. If the surface area per mass was much higher than normal, or if were restrained by friction, then the acceleration due to gravity would be lower than it should be.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__Conclusion__:

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">We have concluded a few things. For one, the theoretical value of gravity's impact on a falling object is only true under ideal circumstances. This would mean that in a vacuum with no sources of extraneous forces (ex. friction, human error), then yes gravity would cause an object to accelerate at 9.80 m/s (980. cm/s). Otherwise, this number will be slightly off. Also, we have noticed through this lab that gravity effects all objects equally. On a side-experiment, we dropped two objects of significantly different mass, but very similar surface area in respects to their size. They fell visually at the same speed. This would explain why a pencil will fall and accelerate at the same speed as a boulder or a human. We have learned that gravity is a nondiscriminatory force. We were also able conclude that gravity is the reason for acceleration during a free fall.