Projectile Motion Lab Report: Car vs Cliff

Aurelia Rich
Set A
Objective/Problem:​ ​Predict the landing point of an object with a horizontally launched
projectile.

Background Information:​ A projectile object is one that is launched with force into the air and
moves under the influence of gravity and air resistance. In order for an object to be horizontally
launched, its initial velocity must be completely horizontal. When launched, there is both a
vertical and horizontal component. The vertical component faces no acceleration, while the
horizontal component is affected by the acceleration due to gravity. For this project, we will want
to figure out where to place the target so that the horizontally launched car will end up hitting it.
We can do so by working with equations.

Materials and Procedure:​ First, the ramp was put together with the use of an inclined plane at
15º, four sections of toy car track and masking tape. Before continuing, it was made sure that
the car would leave the table horizontally with the horizontal part at least 20 cm long. Then, the
time the car took to roll along the flat part of the track before falling off the table was recorded
with an iPad timer. It was measured three different times, catching the car before it landed, and
eventually finding the average. After calculating the initial horizontal velocity of the car, the time
of flight was then found. The vertical displacement the toy car needed to drop from the edge of
the table so that it could hit the floor was measured using a meterstick. Next, the time it took the
car to fall to the floor was found. Last, the predicted range (horizontal distance from the table)
that the car will cover was calculated. The target was then placed on the floor at the predicted
position and the car toy was launched with it’s landing measured.

Materials:
- Toy car track and car
- Inclined Plane
- Masking tape
- Timer
- Target
- 2 meter sticks
Quantitative Data

Trial Time Distance

1 .40 s .7 m

2 .40 s .7 m

3 .50 s .7 m

AVG .43 s .7 m

Calculations:​ For my first calculation, I used Vix=d/t to calculate the horizontal velocity
of the car and the average time. Next, we found the time it took the car to fall to the floor
by using y=1/2ayt^2 and solving for t. Then to calculate the predicted range that the car
will cover, we used the equation x=vixt.

Analysis:​ The percent error was found by dividing the expected value minus the
measured value by the expected value and multiplying the value by 100. Two possible
errors made in this lab could have been miscalculations and reaction time.

Conclusion:​ The purpose of this lab was to predict the landing point of an object with a
horizontally launched projectile. Our predicted car range was 0.69 meters but its actual
range was found to be 0.62 meters. Some ways we could have improved the experiment
and reduced error are double checking all of our calculations and measurements to
make sure they are all correct. We could also make sure that our reaction time was
correct and as accurate as possible.