Acceleration Due to Gravity Lab Report

Luka Vonier

Course: PHYS 141

Due Date: 6 PM on 09/25/19
 Abstract
For this lab, we dropped a tennis ball from 9 different measured heights using a meter stick
held in place by duct tape. We recorded each trail and measured the positions of the tennis ball at
each given moment in an attempt to measure the acceleration due to gravity. We found that our
average acceleration of the object only deviated about 2 m/s2 from 9.81 m/s2, the official
acceleration due to gravity.

Introduction
In this lab, we are measuring the position of the falling object as it accelerates due to gravity.
To start with, we designated 9 different heights to drop the ball from to measure the positions. This
is done simply with a meter stick, tennis ball, and camera. Next, we uploaded our footage of the ball
dropping onto a software that allowed us to take frame by frame samplings of each trail and track
the ball over the course of the time it was falling. The program then charted out that ball’s position
as a function of time onto a graph. It also charted out velocity and acceleration as a function of
time, but due to the inaccuracy of the measurements the software kept track of, we decided to
calculate our own acceleration due to gravity by taking two derivates of the graph of the ball’s
position over time, which should give us a relatively constant acceleration if we neglect air resistance.
We can calculate the acceleration by deriving from the kinematic equation for position, which we
will use in this lab to approximate our trails and see if we made the correct measurements to find g,
the acceleration due to gravity.

Procedure
We measured the position of the tennis ball using a video of the ball falling next to a meter
stick. Before each trail, we designated a distinct distance in cm to drop the ball from, with each trail
having a difference of 5 cm from the previous one. The setup for our experiment is listed below in
Figure 1. We measured the distance from the tennis ball to the ground from the bottom of the
tennis ball, not the middle, since the tennis ball’s bottom would be the only part hitting the ground.
Once we uploaded each video file to the software, we slowed the video down to half speed and
manually measured the tennis ball’s position for every frame, and the software kept track of how
much time had passed in the video and plotted it out on the x-axis once we had the overall slope of
the ball’s position. We made sure to orient the software’s axis to fit that of the meter stick, and we
also designated a certain length in the video to represent the height from which we dropped the ball
so the graphs that the software fed back to us would be metrically accurate in both time and
distance. We kept the meter stick carefully in place with duct tape as a way to ensure our
measurements were as accurate as possible, as the meter stick was our only true frame of reference
for the height we dropped the ball from. For recording, we simply propped up one of our cell
phones and took a video of us dropping the ball from different heights. We tried to make sure the
camera was directly perpendicular to the meter stick and the ball being dropped to ensure that our
measurements were not skewed by a slanted angle. We also made sure to drop the ball directly in
front of the meter stick so it wouldn’t be too far into the foreground when it hit the ground, and
that way we could put it right up to the measured height on the meter stick as well.
 Tennis Ball

Meter Stick

Figure 1. The setup to measure our tennis ball’s position relative to the meter stick over the amount
of time it takes to hit the ground.

Theory
In this lab, we measured the change in position over time of a tennis ball falling due to the
force of earth’s gravity. We wanted to use this data to calculate the acceleration of earth’s gravity, so
we needed to take two derivatives of the kinematic equation for position 𝑦 as a function of time 𝑡 to
find acceleration 𝑔.

1
𝑦(𝑡) = 𝑦𝑜 + 𝑣𝑜 𝑡 − 𝑔𝑡 2
2

When we take the derivative of that, we find that velocity 𝑣 has a function

𝑣(𝑡) = 𝑣𝑜 − 𝑔𝑡

And finally, when we take the derivative one last time to find acceleration 𝑎, we find that

𝑎 = −𝑔

Which means that our acceleration will be constant. So if we use the first equation and sub in the
total distance the ball travelled in the course of the time allotted, keeping in mind that the distance
will be negative if our initial position and velocity is zero, we should be able to find g.
 Results and Sample Calculation
For Trail 3, our total change in position was .95 m, and the change in time was .45 sec,
1
meaning that if we plug that into 𝑦(𝑡) = − 2 𝑔𝑡 2 , we get g being equal to 9.38 m/s2. Our raw data
for each trail is listed below:

Trail # Drop Distance (in Change in Time (in

meters) seconds)
1 1.25 .5

2 .95 .45

3 1.09 .45

4 .93 .45

5 .775 .35

6 1 .5

7 .9 .45

8 .73 .35

9 .675 .30

Drop Distance in Meters (x) vs Time in seconds (y)

1.4

1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
If we go back and calculate the acceleration for each one, we find that

Trail # Acceleration (in

m/s2)
1 10

2 9.38

3 10.76

4 9.19

5 12.65

6 8

7 8.89

8 11.92

9 15

Accelerarion in m/s^2 (y) vs Drop Distance in meters (x)

16

14

12

10

0
1.25 0.95 1.09 0.93 0.775 1 0.9 0.73 0.675

We result in an average of 10.64 m/s2 with a standard deviation of 2.20. Our margin of
error was 1.21 at a 90% confidence level.
 Discussion
While we found that a few of our trials were very close to the actual acceleration due to
gravity, 9.81 m/s2, there are many external factors that could’ve skewed our results the way they did.
First of all, the computer was not able to render the ball in a complete form for each frame we
measured in. We also had an inconsistency in measuring the ball from relatively the middle while
tracking it in the video and measuring the bottom of the ball to find the distance to drop from. This
was due to a blur effect in the video that caused the bottom of the ball to not completely form, so
we did our best and measured the middle of the blur to try and keep track. Another possible source
of error was that we had to take pictures of the graphs the software made for us, so we were not
able to accurately measure the change in time or height since we only had a picture of a computer
screen to go off of. This could’ve drastically changed our results, as I was not able to tell much of a
difference between .5 and .45 seconds. On top of this, the graph did not start until >1 second in on
the x axis, making it even more confusing. Plus, the scale of each graph was different, meaning
there was no consistent way of obtaining our data. Overall, if we could’ve performed this
experiment with a camera that had a higher fps, had direct access to our data via the graphs that
were formed from the software we used to measure the ball’s position, and used a more accurate
form of measurement other than “eyeballing” it with a meter stick, I think our calculations would be
more accurate and our margin of error would’ve improved.
1
To obtain a linear graph, we had to use the equation 𝑦(𝑡) = − 2 𝑔𝑡 2 and graph g as a
function of position and time, both of which we measured in our data sets. However, since our
slopes were so over the place, we did not get an accurate measurement of the accepted value of g
when we compared our calculations from all 9 trails. We can manipulate our data slightly by taking
2𝑦(𝑡)
the square root of the function 𝑔 = − , in which we get the graph
𝑡2

Acceleration (m/s2) S1 v Height (m) S2 v Time (sec) S3

5

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Series1 Series2 Series3

And our g is slightly more linear than before.

Some of our trails could be considered duds and be thrown out, most specifically trail 9. It
was the smallest dropping distance, with the bottom of the ball being measured at around .65 m and
the middle of the ball (which is what we tried to track in the video to calculate position) clocking in
at around .675 m. This could’ve caused an inaccuracy in measurement simply because our ball
didn’t have enough space to speed up to the point where we had a large enough margin between the
dropping reference point and the point at which the ball hit the floor.