Projectile Motion
Video Analysis
Experiment & Purpose: The purpose of this was to study the properties of projectile motion. In this experiment I simply threw a tennis ball forward, and took a video. From there, I uploaded the video to the PASCO Capstone application in order to analyze the motion of the ball. I tracked the ball's motion using the tracking feature on the application. I was than able to examine some key characteristics of projectile motion. Once I had created the graphs and examine them, I realized that motion in the horizontal direction is independent from the motion in the vertical direction.
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| The image above shows the path of the tennis ball after leaving my hand. The green crosses represent the position of the tennis ball. The yellow symbol represents the measurement tool that was necessary for the subsequent calculations. |
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| The graph above shows the position of the ball over time. The purple line represents the ball's horizontal displacement, and the green (highlighted yellow) line represents the ball's vertical displacement. |
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| The graph above shows the velocity of the ball over time. The red line represents the ball's horizontal velocity, and the blue line represents the ball's vertical velocity. |
V0 - Initial Velocity
a - Acceleration
t - Time
Δx - Displacement
xi - Starting (initial) position
With the data collected so far, I can calculate a number of unknowns.
- Vertical Acceleration: -9.8 m/s2 (force from Earth's gravity)
- Horizontal Acceleration: 0 m/s2 (no unbalanced force in the horizontal direction)
Vertical Initial Velocity: 0.21 m/s (Δx = Vit + .5a*Δt2)
Horizontal Initial Velocity: -11 m/s (negative due to being thrown to the left)
Velocity at the top of ball's path (vertical) is 0 m/s because it is changing direction.
Velocity at the top of the path (horizontal) is -11 m/s (constant velocity)
Final Velocity (vertical): -3.8 m/s last data point on v vs. t graph
Final Velocity (horizontal): -13.1 m/s last data point on v vs. t graph
Highest point reached by ball: 1.6 meters (vertex of parabola on graph)
Distance ball traveled: 4.51 meters (using Δx = .5*a*Δt2+ Vi*Δt)
Conclusion: After this experiment, I learned that motion experienced on the the vertical component does not correlate with the motion experienced on the horizontal component this is due to the object's inertia, since no external horizontal force is needed to maintain the horizontal motion. So the V = Δx/Δt formula may only be applied to the horizontal component due to the object experiencing constant velocity only on the horizontal component, not the vertical component. On the vertical component the only two models that can be applied are the CAPM and UFPM models, however the only two models that can be applied to the horizontal component are BFPM and CVPM models. We also learned that that the only force that acts primarily on the object is gravity.
Velocity at the top of the path (horizontal) is -11 m/s (constant velocity)
Final Velocity (vertical): -3.8 m/s last data point on v vs. t graph
Final Velocity (horizontal): -13.1 m/s last data point on v vs. t graph
Highest point reached by ball: 1.6 meters (vertex of parabola on graph)
Distance ball traveled: 4.51 meters (using Δx = .5*a*Δt2+ Vi*Δt)
Conclusion: After this experiment, I learned that motion experienced on the the vertical component does not correlate with the motion experienced on the horizontal component this is due to the object's inertia, since no external horizontal force is needed to maintain the horizontal motion. So the V = Δx/Δt formula may only be applied to the horizontal component due to the object experiencing constant velocity only on the horizontal component, not the vertical component. On the vertical component the only two models that can be applied are the CAPM and UFPM models, however the only two models that can be applied to the horizontal component are BFPM and CVPM models. We also learned that that the only force that acts primarily on the object is gravity.
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