Impulsive Behavior

Purpose: Using your knowledge of kinematics equations, your understanding of

Newton’s Second Law, and the interplay between impulse and momentum, you will
calculate the time it takes for a popper toy to jump off the table top.

You have learned that Newton’s second Law is truly an equation relating impulse and
change in momentum. A “popper” toy is something we can use to study the force and
time involved in launching a popper toy.

Procedure:
1. Turn the popper inside out. Put it on the table at rest. Measure the maximum height
to which the popper rises. Repeat this three times and take the average height.

H1 H2 H3 Havg

2. Complete the following table and calculate the speed of the popper when it leaves
the table. Use the information from the flight just after it leaves the table until it reaches
its highest point. Hint: y1 = Havg. Show your work.

3. When the popper toy is turned inside out and set on the counter, the force must act as it snaps back
to its original shape. So measure from the tabletop to the highest point of the popper carefully. This is
the distance the force is acting through. Make this measurement before it snaps.

Hpopper = _____________ = y2

4. Measure and record the mass of the stopper.

M = ___________________

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5. For just the part of the motion before it leaves the table top, find the acceleration of the “snap”.
Vo is before it snaps, v is just after it snaps (you solved for this in question 2) and y2 is the distance
through which the force is acting, or the height of the popper. Show your work.

a = __________________________

6. Use Newton’s Second Law to calculate the net force on the popper as it leaves the table.

Fnet = _____________________________________

7. Write the equation relating impulse and momentum.

8. Calculate the time of the “snap”

t = ___________________________

9. Get the t from at least 4 other groups and find the average (including your own). Find the standard
deviation and percent uncertainty.

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