Ballistic Pendulum

An object was placed or hanged on the proper area, where it could sit at rest. That is to say an inclined track for the cart, and a ring stand for both the pendulum and a mass attached at the end of a spring. Hereafter, a motion detector was connected to a computer via a lab quest and was brought in close proximity with the object. After that, the motion detector sensitivity switch was set to ball/walk or track depending on the object’s motion which is being studied. From here, the appropriate file for plotting an object’s graphs was opened on the desktop. Then, from here, everything was in place for data collection. (Photos below).

9. The total energy is constant for most of the time until the ball is released and caught up and down in free fall, because extra force of the person actions changes the energy. The energy should remain constant because the kinetic and potential ratio energy

Bocce ball is a great way to demonstrate the complex wonders of Newton’s three laws in a simple and understandable way. Bocce ball, which was first documented in the year 5200 B.C., is a sport that was first popularized during the roman empire. It wasn’t more than just a leisurely activity until the game found its way back into Italy, once the Roman empire collapsed. Bocce ball was steadily rising and falling in popularity, until a major resurgence in 1896, when it was admitted an olympic sport, and has been part of the summer olympics ever since. Bocce has really become such a widespread sport because you can participate no matter how old, what your race is, or what gender you are. All you need to do is roll a ball. America seemed very separated from the game until a sweep of popularity in California in 1989. Today there is said to be 25,000,000 bocce ball players in the United States. Many aspects of the game of Bocce ball can be relatable to the simple concepts of Newton’s original three laws, from the balls hitting each other (Newton’s third law), to throwing balls harder to increase the force and then slowing down (Newton’s first and second laws). Throughout this essay, I will not only explain what each of Newton’s three laws mean, but provide a real life example of how it could relate to the game of bocce ball.

Newton’s First Law of Motion, inertia, says that an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. The ball will not move forward until the server hits it into play and it will not stop until it hits the net or the ground. The second part of the law is momentum where an object in motion will stay in the motion of a straight line with a constant speed unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. The ball will continue to move in a straight line or an arc until a player blocks the ball from traveling any farther. Newton’s Second Law, force, states that force equals mass times acceleration (F=ma). For volleyball, the more force applied to the ball, the further it will go. This is very important in volleyball because the players need to have the perfect amount of force on the ball to get it over the net but keeping it in bounds. Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The player hits the ball with a certain amount of force, the ball hits the player’s hand with the same amount of force. In volleyball, the player’s upward motion pushes the ball up, where the opposite reaction is the downward motion of the player’s arm after hitting the ball

Lastly, the launch angle also has a great effect on the distance traveled. If projected at 90° the ball would only be thrown vertically upwards and back down to the person. There would be no horizontal change in position but a great maximum height. The greatest horizontal distance is reached between 40° and 50°. For this reason the launch angle affects the

Our tension giving material (bungee cords) were stretched from the front of our catapult to the arm, over the bar that allows for a proper launch angle. The potential energy stored in the bungee cords is at a maximum when the arm is pulled all the way to its farthest angle away from the launching bar. When released, the bungee cords sling the arm forward as it rotates on a dowel. The arm hits the launching bar, causing all the energy transferred from the chords to the arm to be transferred into the golf ball. The golf ball is then hurled forward, and can reach a distance of about 17

The process of walking is a perplexing yet intriguing form of bipedal locomotion. It is important to distinguish walking from running. Walking is achieved by what is called double pendulum. The first leg that is raised forward in order to walk is called the first pendulum. The first pendulum then touches the ground with the heel of the foot in a process called the inverted pendulum. The process continues, and walking ensues. Both legs are coordinated so that one foot is always on the ground. Approximately sixty percent of the energy utilized for walking is recovered by walking in itself. Curiously, swinging the arms while walking is another way the body saves energy.

Using the program Projectile Motion available at: http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/projectile-motion/projectile-motion_en.html the data for angle, weight, Air resistance, distance, and speed could be calculated. The first thing that had to be determined was how much the person (Suzan) was going to weigh, because it was determined impolite to ask an average 70kg was decided on for the weight of the projectile

From equation 5 we found that the velocity of the ball after impact is given by:

The class was presented with the problem that a grandfather clock’s pendulum was not keeping time, and divided into three groups in an attempt to solve the issue. Each group was to test one independent variable that would most affect the swing of the pendulum, and was comprised of three smaller teams of two people. The three groups would change the mass of the bob, the length of the rod (string), and the angle from which the bob was released. It was hypothesized that if the mass of the bob were increased, then the pendulum would keep time differently because of air resistance. This was concluded because adding weights to the bob would increase the surface area and therefore cause a variation in the pendulum’s swing. The dependent variable

To test the speed and velocity of the bowling ball the time was recorded over a set distance of 29 meters. While speed does not have direction, velocity does. Our hypothesis was proven correct because as the speed increased the velocity increased as well. As proven in the calculation of the velocity and speed the slow bowling ball’s speed and velocity were 1.89 meters per second and the fast bowling ball’s velocity and speed were 5.98 meters per second. There were many sources of error such as the slanted hallway and bumpy floor which caused the bowling ball to decrease the speed of the bowling ball. Due to the multiple timers there were different starting times which caused some of the recorded time to be skewed.To avoid these error the experiment

1. Stand measuring stick up straight 2. Drop ball from three from the air 3. Locate maximum height in which the ball bounced 4. Record data

Now, substituting the average velocity from the short-range experiment into this formula, we can find the height the ball should have reached.

In this experiment, a photogate, a chopper, and a Universal Lab Interface were used to determine the free fall motion of the chopper as it was released. A ball, carbon paper, and an L-shape projector were also used to determine the range of projectile motion of a ball being released from a horizontal yet slightly vertical slope. At the end of the experiment, one will know how velocity

Table 1 – Recorded distance tennis ball traveled (+/- 0.04 m) from edge of table to where it hit the ground and time it took from leaving table to hitting ground (+/- 0.15 s) for 10, 20, 30, 40