Tyler Vollmer August 25th, 2010

Partners: Kaylah William, AP Physics, Santiago High School CA USA

Finding the Height of a Building

Introduction: The lab purpose was to find the height of the building. The lab was trying to prove that
people can measure a height without a meter stick but with a stopwatch. Overall, the lab was to
demonstrate how one can measure with a stopwatch.

Materials and Methods: The lab required a Stopwatch, A pencil, and a building to complete it. The lab
required to drop an item from the top of the building and then measure the time to find the height of
the building.

Results:

Trial # Time for the pencil to Deviation

drop
Trial 1 .89 sec .046 sec
Trial 2 .96 sec .024 sec
Trial 3 .85 sec .086 sec
Trial 4 .80 sec .136 sec
Trial 5 1.00 sec .064 sec
Trial 6 .99 sec .054 sec
Trial 7 1.01 sec .074 sec
Trial 8 .89 sec .046 sec
Trial 9 1.02 sec .084 sec
Trial 10 .95 sec .014 sec
average .936 sec .0628 sec

Given:

∆ y =height of buliding=?

m
a=g=gravitational constant=9.8
s2

t=time for the pencil ¿ drop=.926 sec

m
V i=initial velocity=0
s

The height of the building

1
∆ y =V i t + a t 2
2
∆ y =0+ ( 4.9 ) (.9362)

∆ y =4.2929 m

The uncertainty

1
∆ y =V i t + a t 2
2

∆ y =0+ ( 4.9 ) (.06282)

∆ y =.0193 m

The height of the building is 4.2929±.0193 m.

Discussion: The lab required multiple trials to come up with correct information. A nice source of error
is using the dropper person as the timer also. A nice way to come out with more efficient numbers is to
let the recorder do the stopwatch.