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How Can Acceleration Due To Gravity be Determined Artificially - Coggle…
How Can Acceleration Due To Gravity be Determined Artificially
Safety
Careful with heavy equipment
Stay clear of drop zone
Consider sonic pulses or light from light gate as they may pose a hazard
Electrical safety to be considered using electrical equipment such as plugging in light gate or with sonic pulses
Methods + Advantages/Disadvantages
Light gate/ultrasonic sensor
A ball is dropped from a set height. An ultrasonic sensor or light gate measures the velocity of the ball as it falls and therefore its' accelration. A stopwatch measures the time taken for balls to fall. Time taken and velocity are used to calculate acceleration.
Velocity is automatically calculated by ultrasonic sensor reducing the need for further calculation. However equipment malfunctions or taring errors could results in systematic or random errors.
Stop-motion photography
A ball is dropped from a set height. Using a video camera or specialised equipment, the ball's movement is recorded. The footage is sorted frame by frame and the ball's movement calculated
Allows observation of changes in direction or further dynamical changes to motion of object as it falls. However it is difficult to infer scale from stop-motion photography which could result in systematic error
Pendulum
A weight with a known mass is swung from a pendulum at a known height, and its' speed increase is calculated to estimate acceleration due to gravity
Can be done in a more controlled environment
Simple set up means that experiment may be conducted in a variety of environments. However it is prone to interference due to low mass of weights meaning they can be blown about by wind easily. Also formula used to calculate is very complicated and could result in random errors
Equipment + Description
Ultrasonic sensor
Indicates when an object moves past it and through sound pulses, measures and calculates velocity and acceleration
Stopwatch
Measures the time taken for something
Tape measure
Indicates when an object moves past it
Light gate
Measures movement
Slow-motion camera
Records footage at a very high frame rate so that multiple still frames of a video may be derived
Calculator
Used to calculate complex formulas such as acceleration due to gravity
Specialised software
Improvements
Repeating experiments multiple times in similar conditions and calculating averages to account for random errors
Calculating averages increases precision which allows for greater reliability
If relying on equipment, use multiple sets of the same equipment to identify any systematic errors
Eliminating systematic errors increases accuracy, which allows for greater validity
Conduct experiment in different locations + different environments
Limitations
Inability to control many variables - wind or air resistance could affect measured acceleration/speed for example
Gravity is different across earth
Availability of equipment
Need to conduct experiment indoors due to air resistance which limits scope of experiment to indoors
Data aggregation
Excel to organise data into a graph
Word to analyse data and draw conclusions