Lainey Doss

SCI 155

Projectile Motion Lab

13 June 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this lab is to observe the affects of gravity on various objects by rolling them
from a surfaces or dropping them.

Hypothesis

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If the object rolls and then is dropped from a 3 foot height, then all of the objects should hit the

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ground at approximately the same time because of the effects of gravity. Gravity should pull on the

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objects equally.

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Data
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*Some of the objects are not the same as the materials listed. Exactly what objects were used will be
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listen in the data table.

Falling Times (in seconds)

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Object Horizontal Trial #1 Trial #2 Trial #3 Average

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Speed
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Small Ball Slow .45 .40 .39 .41

Fast .48 .45 .43 .33
Dropped .41 .30 .28 .33
Toy Car Slow .19 .19 .17 .18
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Fast .20 .18 .21 .19

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Dropped .15 .10 .11 .12

Toy Soccer Slow .30 .29 .23 .27
Ball
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Fast .23 .20 .22 .22

Dropped .30 .38 .35 .34
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Analysis Questions
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1. Compare your drop times for the three objects of varying masses. Do you see a trend? If so,
what can explain this trend? If not, why is there no trend in the data?

The trend in the data that I can see is the objects had similar fall times in the trial averages regardless of
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how they fell. The objects also had very similar averages overall with each other. The explanation of this
is that gravity is an equal force.
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2. Looking at marble, was there any trend in the time it took to fall from the elevated surface
based on its horizontal speed?
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Unfortunately, I had to use just a small ball instead of a marble, but there was a slight variation in the
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small ball’s drop times depending on how it was dropped. When it was simply dropped instead of rolled,
the drop times were faster, while when it was rolled quickly the ball had slower fall times.

3. Was this trend in for the marble the same for the toy car? The racquetball? If so, why is the
trend consistent? If not, why not?

There is a slight difference in some of the methods and the objects, but it seems like it would be human
error more than anything else.

4. What are some possible sources of error in this experiment?

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 Other sources possible sources of error in this experiment are reaction time differences when calculating
the time of the fall, not having the exact same object in the materials list and the possible height
differences in dropping the object versus rolling it to a drop.

5. From all of the data in this experiment what can you say about the relationship between the
horizontal velocity and the falling times?

From the data in this experiment, it seems horizontal velocity is equal with the object falling, so it should
fall at the same time when dropped from an equal height[Til131].

Reflection
This lab was easy and simple to do while explaining a force we encounter every day. I don’t usually
purposefully push objects off of surfaces to study them, so to observe it in this way was very insightful. I
observed horizontal motion and how it affects different masses of objects and how height can affect
that.

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 References
Tillery, B., Enger, E., & Ross, F. (2013). Integrated Science: Sixth Edition. McGraw Hill.

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