Kevin Tran
Lab partners: Kevin Nguyen, Jose Rodriguez
March 18, 2017

Trajectories

        Purpose: To use your understanding of projectile motion to predict the impact point of a ball on an inclined board.

       Introduction: We will place a metal ball on an inclined aluminum "v-channel" that is connected to an apparatus and as it rolls down, it will roll on an aluminum "v-channel" parallel to the table and free fall due to gravity onto a metal board after leaving the aluminum "v-channel". First, we will be using a piece of carbon paper to mark where the metal will land each time for five trials. Later on, we will add a metal board into the experiment and our theory is that once the ball makes first contact with a metal board, that will be the distance that the ball has traveled in the x direction.

Here is the visual display of the lab: (picture below).

First, we measured the height of the exit where the ball will drop from. (picture below).

Now, in order to find the distance from the exit to the paper, we needed to use a string to find the origin of where the x distance will begin from.

Once, we placed our string, we begun the 5 trials of the metal ball on the incline. (picture of starting point).

After 5 trials, the metal ball in our case landed on the same exact spot. We measured the distance from the table to the location that the ball has landed.

After doing for the first part of the lab, we have come to a conclusion that we have the following results:

Height: 0.943m +/- 0.001m

Distance: 0.911m +/- 0.001m

With the results, we calculated the velocity of 2.07 m/s (picture below).

Now onto part 2 of the lab, which is to insert a metal board onto the table like so (picture below).

First, we tried finding the angle of the metal board. By using an angle app from our phones and a tool to find an angle, we have found an angle of 24.6 degrees.

We redone the 5 trials for the metal balls, but we included a metal board. As a result, the metal ball has landed on the same spot five times. The distance from the table to the mark is 0.44m +/- 0.001m

(work displayed below).

Now, I will display my work to find uncertainty for d. (work displayed below).

Overall, with uncertainty, the distance that the object traveled is 0.44m +/- 0.01m

Conclusion: The lab allowed us to understand how we can calculate how far an object has traveled after free falling. Also, this lab helps us understand how gravity works as it is in moving throughout the air.