Free Fall

Watcharit Athikhamanon ( Key ) 10 7

Objectives: Measure the acceleration of a freely falling body (g) to better than 0.5% precision
using a Picket Fence and a Photogate.
Hypothesis: The acceleration of the object will be constant, so if the acceleration is constant and
of cause the graph will be linear. And for another reason that support is gravity force that make it
acceleration constantly.
Materials:
- LapQuest interface
- Logger Lite
- Venier Photogate
- Picket Fence
- Clamp and stand to secure Photogate
- Power Macintosh or Windows PC
Procedure:
1. Fasten the Photogate rigidly to a ring stand so the arms extend horizontally, as shown in Figure 1.
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 (such as a carpet) to land on.
2. Connect the Photogate to the DIG/SONIC 1 input of the LabQuest or the DG 1 input on the ULI.
3. Observe the reading on the screen of the LabQuest interface. Block the Photogate with your hand;
note that the Photogate is 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 to prepare the Photogate. Hold the top of the Picket Fence and drop it through the Photogate,
releasing 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 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 line to your data. To do this, select the
straight part of your data and use the linear fit function in the analyze menue of Logger Lite. Record
the slope in the data table.
7. To establish the reliability of your slope measurement, repeat Steps 5 and 6 five more times. Do not
use drops in which thePicket Fence hits or misses the Photogate. Record the slope values in the data
table.
Results:
Test 1






Test 2







Test 3








Test 4






Test 5







Test 6








Trial 1 2 3 4 5 6
Slope (m/s
2
) 9.60 9.70 9.73 9.70 9.70 9.80
Analysis:
1.From your six trials, determine the minimum, maximum, and average
values for the acceleration of the Picket Fence. Record them in the table.
Minimum Maximum Average
Acceleration (m/s
2
) 9.60 9.80 9.71

2. Describe in words the shape of the distance vs. time graph for the free fall.
Ans It is a cure graph because the velocity do not stay constant it increasing every 1
second so it make the shape of the distance vs time graph get to a curve shape.

3. Describe in words the shape of the velocity vs. time graph. How is this
related to the shape of the distance vs. time graph?
Ans The shape of the velocity vs time graph it goes stress up with a positive which is a
linear line. It is linear because the acceleration is constant. So it not the same as the
distance vs time graph because it have a cure shape of the graph. It is related because
velocity is not constant so the distance vs. time graph graph will be in a cure shape .

4. The average acceleration you determined represents a single best value, derived from
all your measurements. The minimum and maximum values give an indication of how
much the measurements can vary from trial to trial; that is, they indicate the precision of
your measurement. One way of stating the precision is to take half of the difference
between the minimum and maximum values and use the result as the uncertainty of the
measurement. Express your final experimental result as the average value, the
uncertainty. Round the uncertainty to just one digit and round the average value to the
same decimal place.
For example, if your minimum, average and maximum values are 9.12, 9.93, and 10.84
m/s2. Record your values in the table:
Ans
Acceleration due to gravity, g 9.7 0.1 m/s
2


5. Compare your measurement to the generally accepted value of g (from a textbook or
other source). Does the accepted value fall within the range of your values? If so, your
experiment agrees with the accepted value.
Ans The information that we got from this experiment is the same as the one that I had
studied before . So my experiment is agrees with the accepted value.

6. Do the results agree with your original hypothesis and predictions? If yes, tell why
your results agree with your hypothesis. If no, explain what the experiment taught you
about free fall and how the results change the hypothesis you had.
Ans My results agree with your original hypothesis because the gravity force can not
change

Conclusion: My results are followed my hypothesis because I had predicted that it
will be constant because the graph that I got from the result is linear which is the
velocity and time graph. The reason that it get to linear line is because of the gravity that
always act to the Picket Fence in the same force. The reason that I knew that gravity
force is constant because of the force of gravity that I got the answer is 9.7 and this
outcome is the same as the number in the real life that force of gravity is 9.7,
so Im sure that my experiment is correct because I got the same answer with
the law.