1 Mechanics
Falling and Bouncing Objects
To record the motion (position, velocity, and acceleration) of a vertically falling and bouncing ball. The extract the object's acceleration.
Equilibrium of a Rigid Body
To explore the conditions for equilibrium of suspended meter stick set-up in symmetrical and non-symmetrical fashion.
Rotational Motion
To study the effect of constant torque on a symmetrical body - vertically rotating disk. To measure the angular velocity vs. time and to calculate the disk's moment of dynamic inertia. To check the conservation of energy principle for the system.
Conservation of Linear Momentum and (Sometimes) Energy
To verify the conservation of momentum principle for inelastic and elastic collisions of dynamic carts. To compare the total initial and final energy in both types of collisions.
What is Energy?
To investigate various forms of energy. To explore various ways that energy can be transferred between objects. To design and perform an experiment to explore some aspect of energy using white boards.
What Causes the Accelerated Motion?
To design and perform an experiment to investigate forces and/or motion using materials available at individual stations (6 in total). To present and explain the experimental results to the class using white boards
Motion in 2D
Toss of light and heavy balls recorded on videotape, digitized, and compared with spreadsheet simulations. To introduce the concepts of Y(x) trajectories with variable force (air drag ), parametric plot, Euler method, fit of coupled parameters, RMS residuals.
What is Motion?
To investigate motion of a dynamic cart on horizontal track; the emphasis on constant velocity motion. generate graphs of position vs. time, velocity vs. time and acceleration vs. time. To create a model for predicting the future and past positions of an object moving horizontally.