Experiment Outline

Falling Objects Experiment

 

Purpose:

The purpose of the experiment is to study the velocities of two different falling objects and see if they accelerate at the same rate or not. Also, we will look at air resistance and what impact can cause on the object’s velocity.

 

Hypothesis:

We would think if we drop two objects of different weight from the same height the heavier object would fall faster than the lighter object, right? The experiment will explore if that is true or not, if not then we will look at the reasons behind that.

 

Experimental Variables:

Independent variable: “Object Weight” we will change the object’s weight every time we drop an object.

Dependent variable: “Velocity” we will look at how the velocity of the two objects will change when changing the object’s weight.

 

Controlled Variable:

The controlled variable will be gravity, as we know earth gravity cannot be changed. Objects have gravity all time and this force pulls objects to the center of the earth.

 

Materials:

The materials needed for the experiment are two objects of different weights, motion detector or NXT with two light sensors and a labview “photogate_sensor”.

 

Procedure:

1) Place the two light sensors on a holder, the distance between the sensors we used was 38cm.

2) Connect the sensors to the NXT.

3) Connect the NXT to the computer and download your program.

4) Place the object you want to drop a few centimeters above the first sensor.

5) Press run on the NXT and drop the object.

6) Collect the data for the velocity and the time the objet took to hit the ground.

 

Measurements/Observations:

Book Velocity: 196.89 m/s

Paper Velocity: 114.11 m/s

It’s obvious from the data we collected that the velocity of the book is bigger. When we drop an object there are two things we look at, weight and air resistance. The result we found was that air resistance is proportional to the velocity. The more the mass, the higher the air resistance will be.