Lab 1 The Physics Laboratory

Submitted by Holly Shankin

Group Members: Susan Oldfield, Apirith Sothea, Holly Shankin

Date Submitted: September 19th, 2019

Purpose:

The purpose of this experiment was to familiarize ourselves with the equipment and methods that will be
used in the laboratory. For example, how to acquired data using a probe connected to a computer and how
to further analyze that data with Excel. This experiment was also meant to gain knowledge about the
unknown quantity of g (gravity) on the picket fence.

Apparatus: Photogate, powersupply, picket fence, foam pad, PASCO interface, computer

Procedure:

Part 1

• Set up Photogate with it extending beyond the edge of the table and with the foam pad directly
underneath it

• Connect Photogate to PASCO interface

• Open PASCO capstone software and select input where photogate is connected and photogate as
device, enter flag spacing and measure time, position, and speed.

• Click record as the picket pence is vertically dropped above the photogate, click stop once the Picket
Fence has fallen. Repeat

Part 2

• Open excel and make a scatter plot of velocity vs. time for all 6 runs

• Add a linear trendline to each separate run of data, add appropriate labels and units

• Create a vertical distance vs. time graph for the final run of data.
Data Graphs

Speed Of Falling Picket-Fence

3 y(3) = 9.7548x - 2.8371
y(2) = 9.652x - 0.6716 y(5) = 9.772x - 3.4247
R² = 0.9999
R² = 1 R² = 0.9999
2.5

2
Speed(m/s)

1.5

y(4) = 9.8192x - 5.4027

1
R² = 1
y(6) = 9.8051x - 1.9453 y(1) = 9.7711x - 3.3375
0.5 R² = 0.9999 R² = 1

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4Time(s) 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9

Position of Falling Picket-Fence in Relation to

Time
0.4
0.35 y = 4.9202x2 - 1.9582x + 0.1592
R² = 1
0.3
0.25
Position (m)

0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
-0.05 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Time (s)

Precautions:

• Dropped the picket fence vertically down to keep the distance between two blocks consistent.

• Released the picket fence rather than adding any force to its movement.

• Added a foam pad for the picket fence to land on as to keep it from being damaged and altering it
for future data collection

Questions

Part 1
Question 1. Looking at the data, you should notice that the time difference between successive data points
is smaller and smaller the farther the picket fence falls. Why is this?

The time difference between the data points becomes smaller and smaller because as the picket
fence fall it accelerates due to gravity. As the picket fence accelerates and falls faster the blocks pass through
the photogate in less and less time.

Question 2. How does the computer know the velocity when all it is measuring is time? Hint: what is the
other part of the equation for average velocity?

The computer knows the velocity because it is measuring the amount of time that passes when the
black sections on the picket fence pass through the photogate. The computer computes the velocity by
dividing the distance between the blocks on the picket fence by the amount of time it takes for the blocks
to pass through the photogate.

Part 2

Question 3. If we want the slope to be the acceleration, which variable, velocity or time, goes on the x-axis?
Why?

For the slope of a velocity and time graph to be acceleration, time must go on the x-axis. Time must go on
the x-axis because both velocity and acceleration are dependent on time.

Question 4. Describe in words the shape of the velocity vs. time graph. (Does the slope stay constant? Is
the Y-intercept zero?)

The velocity vs. time graph has a constant slope because the slope is the acceleration which is the constant
force of gravity. The y-intercept is not zero because that would be when the velocity equals zero and in this
experiment the picket fence never came to a stop, or more specifically the photogate did not measure the
picket fence as it came to a stop.

Question 5. Describe in words the shape of the distance vs. time graph for the free fall. How should this
look (linear, quadratic, etc.)?

The distance vs. time graph would be an exponential equation. This is due to the fact that the velocity
increases with time because the picket fence falls with gravity as the acceleration force.

Question 6. Look at your list of 6 slope values (i.e. acceleration values) and, in one or two qualitative
sentences, report how reproducible your acceleration results appear (e.g. very similar values, widely varying
from one trial to the next, etc.).

The 6 slope values obtained by the experiment were reproducible, they all were within a decimal or two of
each other. A majority of the values we obtained were extremely similar while one was slightly larger with a
difference between this and the next largest point being 0.1672.

Question 7. Is your standard deviation low when compared to the value of your average? As a rough
guideline, a standard deviation less than 10% of your average is OK (but the lower the better!). Does this
standard deviation seem reasonable with what you put for your quantitative description of reproducibility
in Question 6? This shows how standard deviation is a measure of reproducibility.
Our standard deviation is incredibly low compared the value of our average. It is significantly lower than
10%, it does seem reasonable based on my answer to Question 6 but appears to be almost too small of a
standard Deviation.

Question 8. Looking at this equation, what would the standard deviation be if all of your measured values
were the same? Explain.

The standard deviation of an experiment where all of the measured values are the same would be zero
because the standard deviation “is a measure of how much difference there is between each data point and
the average.” In a case where all measured values are the same, the average and the difference between data
points are zero.

Question 9. It is very useful to understand the effects of errors, both to prevent them and to account for
unexpected results. When you drop the picket fence, the markers are perpendicular with the photogate
beam. How your results be affected if the picket fence was dropped at an angle through the photogate?

If the picket fence was dropped at an angle through the photogate then the length being measured by the
photogate would be longer because the shortest distance of the clear spaces in directly vertical. If the distance
was measured to be longer than this the velocity would be calculated incorrectly.

Question 10. Using calculus, how do you determine (1) velocity from position, and (2) acceleration from
position?

Velocity is the derivative of position and acceleration is the derivative of velocity. One way you can
determine Velocity is by dividing change in distance by change in time. From this you can make a graph of
velocity and the slope of that graph would result in acceleration.

Errors:

This lab contained very few errors which you can tell because the R^2 values of the data on the graph are
all either 1 or incredibly close to 1 meaning we have a linear graph of velocity vs. time which was expected
(because acceleration was a constant). There could be sources of error such as if I threw the picket fence
down at all or if it was dropped at an angle. We could minimize these errors by having a robotic arm drop
the fence or by lining it up with a horizontal arm so that it is lined up correctly while it drops through the
photogate.

Conclusion:

After conducting this experiment, I have drawn the following conclusion, when dropped the picket fence
will fall with a constant acceleration of around 9.8 m/s^2 and increasing velocity. I came to this conclusion
because the 6 experiments all produced very similar results, as we know because the standard deviation is
much less than 10% of the average of the data points point to the slope of the graph of velocity being 9.8
m/s^2.