Experiment 4

Projectile Motion
By

Monty N. J. Attzs
PHY 2091-07
Experiment Performer: 6th Feb 2014
Report Submitted: 13th Feb 2014

Lab Partners:

Amina
Hunter

Instructor:

Corinne Fletcher

Introduction
The purpose of this lab was to investigate projectile motion. This was done by calculating the
time of flight of a ball launched horizontally off of a track at different velocities, both
experimentally and theoretically, and then comparing the results from both cases.

Data

Data Analysis
List of variables used:

h Height of ball as it leaves track

P1n Start position (wrt horizontal)

for the nth trial

P2n End position (wrt horizontal)
th

for the n trial

Xn Range (final horizontal

D Diameter of ball
tth Theoretical time of flight
tex Experimental time of flight
gth Theoretical acceleration due to

gravity = 9.792 0.005 m/s2

d Discrepancy (difference between
tex and tth)

displacement) for the nth trial

Sample

Calculations:

- Experimental time of flight: This was found to be 0.448 s by plotting a graph of range
vs. velocity in Microsoft Excel.

- Range (final horizontal

displacement):

This was found by calculating the

difference between the start and end
position with respect to the

- Theoretical time of flight:

This was found using the formula:

t = SQRT(2*h/gth)

Therefore, tth =

horizontal.

SQRT[(2*0.974)/9.792]

e.g. (using the first trial)

X1 = (P21 - P11)/100

- Discrepancy, d:

d = | tex tth| = |0.448 0.446| =

0.002 s

%d = (d/tth)*100

= (40.8 10)/100 = 0.308 m

= 0.446 s

= (0.002/0.446)*100 = 0.4%

Discussion

Experimental Time of Flight:

Theoretical Time of Flight:

0.448 s

0.446 s

Discrepancy, d = 0.002
Percent Difference: 0.4%

It has been thought in the past that motion implies an attached force, however, this has
been proven to be false as the force acting upon a body has been defined as the mass of
the body multiplied by its acceleration. This means that a body cannot possess or
have a force, but it can be acted upon by a force or it can itself exert a force upon
another body. What a body in motion (i.e. has velocity) does in fact possesses is
momentum. Considering Newtons second law of motion; the rate of change of
momentum of a body is directly proportional to the applied unbalanced force, the velocity
of a body in motion will change relative to the applied force, in this case gravity. As such,
since gravity acts perpendicular to the earths surface, it affects the vertical component of
a bodys velocity but not its horizontal component. Therefore a bodys time of flight is
completely independent of its horizontal velocity and so, falling from the same height, all
bodies should have the same time of flight regardless of their horizontal velocity,
provided that they all forces on the systems are constant and their starting vertical
velocities are all the same. This was observed, from the trials and calculations, that
regardless of the horizontal velocity of the ball, its time of flight was determined solely
by its vertical velocity and not by its initial horizontal velocity.

The sources of error in this lab include random error in measurement of the diameter of
the ball and of the height of the end of the track from the ground. There was also a greater
random error in the measurement of the range because of both the act of measuring with a
meter ruler and the fact that all the range markings were not in a straight line. This may

have been due to the track not being perfectly level, which would have been a systematic
intrinsic error, or some other factor. There was no fixed pattern in how the markings were
made to suggest that the unevenness of the track was the only factor involved, but
whatever other factor may have been involved are unknown.

Regardless of those errors, the measurements were made and the range was plotted
against velocity. This gave a linear graph whose gradient was the time of flight in seconds
(s). Ideally, the y-intercept should have been zero as theoretically there should be zero
displacement at time, t=0, however, it was not so. This would have been caused by a
number of factors, the main one being that air resistance was not considered and a
constant velocity was assumed for the entire flight. If air resistance was considered, then
it would have slowed the flight, resulting in a longer time of flight. This can been seen in
the final results, seeing as tex was indeed longer than tth, however, judging from the
discrepancy, it is fair to say that the air resistance, among whatever other intrinsic errors
may have been present, was in fact negligible. The discrepancy, d, was found to be
~0.002 s, giving a percent difference, %d, of 0.4%. With such a small d and %d the
experiment can be said to be a success.

Though the effective errors were small and the experiment a success, the experiment was
still limited by the inability to make very accurate measurements. As such it can still be
improved. Some possible improvements would be to:

Include a spirit level and paper chucks to be used to ensure that the track is perfectly

level.
Use a laser measuring tool along with the spirit level to more accurately measure the

height of the track from the ground.

Use a string and pins to more accurately judge the direct path between the starting and
ending points (with respect to the horizontal).

With these improvements the experiment should turn out even more accurate results.

 Conclusion

It was observed that the time of flight of a projectile is independent of its initial
horizontal velocity. And so, from a height of 0.974m, the experimental time of flight, tex,
was found to be 0.448 seconds while the theoretical time of flight, tth, was found to be
0.446 seconds. Their discrepancy, d, was found to be 0.002 seconds or 0.4%.
As such, with such a small d, the experiment was considered a success.