Experiment 2 — Motion in One and Two Dimensions LPHYS4115

Physics I for Science and Engineering with Lab

Experiment 2 — Motion in One and Two Dimensions
LPHYS4115
Dr JWE Kneller

1 Equipment
ˆ Clamp stand and attachments

ˆ Phone that can record videos

ˆ Hover puck

ˆ Adjustable glass tables with elastic cord

boundaries

ˆ Spirit level

ˆ Ruler and meter rule

ˆ Lab jack Figure 1: Experimental Apparatus

2 Introduction
You will be attempting a similar experiment to the one Galileo did more than 400 years ago.
He dropped objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and he used inclined planes to slow down
the free fall of objects so that the motion could be observed in detail. Galileo showed with his
free-fall experiments that heavy and light objects fall at the same rate. If a boulder and a pencil
were both dropped in the absence of air resistance they would hit the floor at the same time.
Astronauts demonstrated this principle on the moon, which has gravity but no atmosphere.

Another observation Galileo made in his experiments, was that an object fired in the hori-
zontal direction from a height, would reach the ground at the same time as one that had just
been dropped straight down. What was observed was the fact that the horizontal motion was
independent of the influence of gravity. You will be using a “Air-Hockey table” to facilitate fric-
tion free surface, then recording how the pucks move in the vertical and horizontal components
independently.

2.1 Video Recording

For this experiment you will need to take video recordings of an air puck moving on a glass table.
Afterwards you will use an online tracking software to analyse the recordings and complete the
analysis tasks in the script.

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 Experiment 2 — Motion in One and Two Dimensions LPHYS4115

The online tracker can be accessed via this link https://physlets.org/tracker/.

There are YouTube videos that explain how to use the tracker and preform the analysis.
Note: you will need to include a meter rule or ruler in the recordings and measure
the dimensions of the table in order to preform the analysis.

3 Objectives
ˆ To study the time dependence of displacement, velocity, and acceleration in one and two-
dimensions.
ˆ To show that motion in one direction is independent of motion in a perpendicular direction.
ˆ Calculate the acceleration due to gravity and compare it with a known value.

4 Investigation I - Motion in One-Dimension

In the first investigation, you will drop the air puck from the top of a tilted table and record
it’s motion going straight down.

4.1 Procedure I
1. Level the high table using the adjustable feet, and also level the glass table using the
spanner.
2. Tilt the glass table so that there is a slope, ensure that the camera can record all of the
glass surface still.
3. Measure the angle the table makes to the horizontal.
4. Turn on the puck and place it in the middle top of the tilted table. Make sure that you
are not blocking the view of the camera.
5. Start recording, wait for about a second and release the puck (make sure you don’t push
the puck as you release).
6. After the puck has slide down and bounced up a few times at the bottom of the table,
stop the recording.
7. Repeat the experiment for a total of three video recordings, to ensure you have a usable
data set for the analysis.

4.2 Analysis I
You are going to calculate the puck’s velocity using its position vs. time data. The average
velocity in the y direction is defined as
∆y
vy = (1)
∆t
where ∆y = y2 − y1 and ∆t = t2 − t1 . Here the subscripts 1 and 2 represent any two consecutive
data points in your data set. Since this is an average velocity for a time interval starting at t1
and ending at t2 , the time coordinate of this average velocity will be the midpoint of the time
interval. In summary, we obtain:
y2 − y1
vy tavg =
t2 − t1
(2)
1
tavg = (t1 + t2 )
2

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Note that, to calculate a single vy value we use two y values, which means that you should have
one less vy data point than y data points.

Analysis I Procedure
1. Using the tracker software find vy and tavg as described above.

2. Create a scatter plot of vy against ta vg. The error bars on here will be too small, so do
not include.

3. Describe the behaviour of the graphs.

4. Your plot should have at least two straight portions. We are going to fit these straight
parts of the data to straight lines and determine their slopes. Unfortunately Excel can
only add a trendline to a full data series and not to a partial data series. So you will add
these straight parts of the data as separate data series. You can skip the first few points
at the beginning and the end of the straight portion of the data to make sure that you
only include good quality data in your fits. Excel displays the coordinates of a point if
you move your cursor on that data point. Once you determine the time coordinates for
the range you want, highlight the portion of the data to allow easy selection later. Repeat
this for the next straight part of the data.

5. Add these highlighted parts of the data to your scatter plot as additional data series.
Next, right click on these new data series and select add trendline to separately fit these
two straight parts of the data. 6. What do these slopes represent physically? Using the
Northeastern Straight Line Fit Calculator, calculate the slope and the uncertainty in the
slope for both straight parts. Do you expect these two values to be close? Are they close?
When you compare them, make sure to include the uncertainties in the slope values in
your comparison.

5 Investigation II - Motion in Two-Dimensions

In this section you will repeat the same analysis, this time by launching the puck from the
bottom left corner of the table in a projectile motion so that the puck will make a parabola.

5.1 Procedure II
1. Turn on the puck and place it in the left corner. Click start recording, wait for a second
then launch the puck such that it will make a parabola that goes all the way up and will
come back down in the right corner. Stop recording before the puck hits the edge of the
table.

2. Repeat the experiment for a total of three video recordings, to ensure you have a usable
data set for the analysis.

5.2 Analysis II
1. Using the tracker software find vy , vx and tavg .

2. Make a scatter plot of velocity versus time. This time include both vx and vy in your plot
as separate data series. Again, do not include any error bars as they are small and hard
to see, but we will use them to calculate the error in the slope.

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 Experiment 2 — Motion in One and Two Dimensions LPHYS4115

3. Identify again the straight portion of the data, this time for both vx and vy . Add the
straight portion of your data both for vx and for vy as separate data series in your existing
scatter plot and add a trendline to each.

4. What do these slopes represent physically? Using the Northeastern Straight Line Fit
Calculator, calculate both slopes and their uncertainties. What do you expect these
values to be? Are any of them close to the values you found in the second investigation?
When you compare them, make sure to include the uncertainties in the slope values in
your comparison.

5.3 Finding g, the free fall acceleration

You will now calculate the acceleration due to gravity, g, using your previous results.

1. Start by drawing a diagram of the setup, including vectors indicating the force of gravity
and acceleration. Then, use it to derive a formula for g. (Hint: You will need to use sin θ,
where θ is the angle at which the air table is tilted.)

2. Calculate the acceleration of free fall in each investigations. g1 from the slope of the one-
dimensional graph. g2 and g3 using the two slope values you determined in the second
experiment. Also calculate their uncertainties, δg1 , δg2 and δg3 . Average them to obtain
the final result, gav (also find its error).

3. Compare your measured gav value to the accepted value of (g). Do they agree within your
experimental uncertainty? If they don’t, are there any errors that you didn’t account for
that might explain the difference?

6 Theoretical Background
Kinematics
In one-dimension, the motion of an object moving with a constant acceleration ax along the
x-axis can be described by two equations:

vx = vx0 + ax t
1 (3)
x = x0 + vx0 t + ax t2
2
where x0 is the initial position, vx0 is the initial velocity, and t is time. Similarly for motion in
the y-direction with acceleration ay , we obtain:

v y = v y0 + a y t
1 (4)
y = y0 + vy0 t + ay t2
2
with y0 the initial position and vy0 the initial velocity in the y-direction.

For two-dimensional motion, in the x-y plane, the displacement ⃗r = (x, y), velocity ⃗v = vx , vy
and acceleration ⃗a = ax , ay will be vectors. Their components in the x and y directions are given
by equations 4 and ??. In this experiment, you will study the one-and two-dimensional motion
of a puck moving on an inclined plane. The puck is riding on an air cushion, which reduces its
friction to a negligible level. Your task is to determine the components of the motion.

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 Experiment 2 — Motion in One and Two Dimensions LPHYS4115

7 Questions
1. Find the time for the puck to reach the bottom of the air table starting from the top.

2. If the acceleration of a puck falling down an incline of angle θ (where θ < 45◦ ) is aθ , what
is a2θ ?

3. You determined the acceleration from the slope of your plot of v vs. t. What is the
meaning of the intercept of your line with the v-axis? Do you expect this value to be close
to the origin?

4. If you performed the experiment again with an incline of θ = 0, what would the trajectories
look like in each case?

5. How would your results change if the masses of the pucks were doubled?