ACTIVITY 5

MOTION OF A FREELY FALLING BODY

Objectives
 To study the motion of a freely falling body.
 To verify the value of the acceleration due to gravity.
Apparatus/Materials:
 spherical object (marble, small metal ball, pebble)
 ruler/triangle ruler or similar to hold the spherical object from the edge of the table (as in
Figure 4.2)
 pen or pencil
 smartphone with installed phyphox application
Procedure:
Preliminary: Watch the video on how to use your smartphone as an acoustic stopwatch for this
experiment found in this link https://phyphox.org/experiment/acoustic-stopwatch/.
1. Using your smartphone, open phyphox, then select the phyphox Acoustic Stopwatch
experiment under the Timers section. The mobile app will be used to measure the time of fall
of the spherical object. You may increase the “threshold” value accordingly, just enough that
there is no measurement being registered when you click the start button. This process
would offset the background noise of your surroundings. Press “reset” discard any prior
measurement(s) recorded.
2. Place the ruler or triangle ruler on top of the table, with at least portion of it is 10cm away
from the edge. Afterwards, place the spherical object on top of the ruler.
3. Measure the height (H) of the object from the ground to the center of mass of the ball.
Record your measurement.
4. Begin data gathering by tapping the ruler on the side to release the spherical object. The
sound of the tap will trigger the “acoustic stopwatch” to start measuring. The sound of the
spherical object hitting the ground will trigger the “acoustic stopwatch” to stop the
measurement.
5. Perform step 4 five times. Determine the average value of the time of fall.
6. Compute for the experimental value of gravitational acceleration using
2𝐻
𝑔𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑡′𝑎𝑙 =
(𝑡𝑎𝑣𝑒 )2
7. Calculate the percentage error. Use g = 9.81 m/s2 as standard value.
8. Perform steps 2 to 7, but this time release the object from a different height (say from the top
of a shelf or a refrigerator.

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Figure 4.1. phyphox Acoustic Stopwatch app screenshot [1,2]

Figure 4.2. Sample setup of a free falling body experiment

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References:
[1] Phyphox.org (n.d.). Acoustic stopwatch. Retrieved on June 23, 2020 from
https://phyphox.org/experiment/acoustic-stopwatch/
[2] Phyphox (2017, November 22). Smartphone-Experiment: Free fall (en). Retrieved
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRGh9_a1J7s
[3] University of Colorado Boulder (n.d.). PhET Colorado simulations: projectile motion.
https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/projectile-motion/latest/projectile-motion_en.html

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Name: __________________________________________________
Date Performed: _________________________________________
Course Code & Section: __________________________________

Data Table and Results

Height Height Height
H = _______ m H = _______ m H = _______ m

Trial Time of Fall (s) Time of Fall (s) Time of Fall (s)
1
2
3
4
5
Average
tave
2𝐻
𝑔𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑡′𝑎𝑙 =
(𝑡𝑎𝑣𝑒 )2

Percentage error

Sample computations:

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QUESTIONS:
1. How does the time of fall vary with initial height?

2. Are the values you obtained for gexpt’al higher or lower than the standard value
9.81 m/s2? Provide an explanation why.

3. What are the possible sources of error in this experiment?

4. Open the PhET Colorado Interactive Simulation Projectile Motion at

https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/projectile-motion/latest/projectile-motion_en.html

Enter the “Intro” interactive simulation. Adjust the tilt of the cannon (byclicking on
the cannon & dragging) such that it points vertically upward. Adjust the height of
the cannon (by clicking on the cannon and dragging it down) to lower its height to
ground level.

a. Fire the cannon by clicking . Observe the maximum height reached by the
“Pumpkin”; i.e. the default object. Now change the object to a smaller one,
e.g. golf ball, and then to a bigger one, e.g. a car. For both cases, observe the
height reached by the object. Does the mass of the object affect the
maximum height reached by the object? Explain why.

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b. . Now, tick the box labeled “Air Resistance. Repeat (a). How does air
resistance affect the maximum height reached by the object?

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