Acceleration Due to Gravity
Jesse Montgomery; Ken Guy
Instructor: Brother Kevin
Ryan
Date: January 28, 2016
Acceleration Due to Gravity
Purpose
The purpose of this lab was to study accelerated linear motion and determine the
acceleration due to gravity g.
Definitions (Formulas)
To start, we needed to define some formulas first. Which are as follows:
(1) velocity= distance/time
(2) acceleration= change in velocity/ change in time
Experiment
What was done
We took a piece of blue tape cut at about arm's length, put something heavy on
the end, and placed one end of it in between two high voltage wires. One person stood on
a stool and when he was ready, the other person pushed the button that turned on the
high voltage. As soon the high voltage was turned on, the other person dropped the tape
resulting in dots appearing all the way down the tape.
Then we took the tape and laid it flat on the table and used a yard stick to measure
the positions of each of the dots. After that, we used the information we gathered to
calculate the velocity which we then converted to acceleration.
Numbers
Dot
Time (sec)
Position (cm)
0
0
0
1
1/30
1.5
2
2/30
3
Change in cm
Change in
sec.
1/30
Velocity
1.5
1/30
45
3
1.5
1/30
96
3/30
6.2
3.2
1/30
123
4
4/30
10.3
4.1
1/30
159
5
5/30
15.6
5.3
1/30
186
6
6/30
21.8
6.2
1/30
222
0
Change in Velocity
Acceleration
45
51
27
36
27
36
1350
1530
810
1080
810
1080
Here is the data for our first six dots.
Conclusion
Our data showed that the force of gravity does cause things to accelerate. So our
hypothesis was correct in stating that gravity causes acceleration.
General Conclusion
Gravity causes things to accelerate towards the center of the earth. As we have just
showed through our data, gravity pulls things down faster than they originally were going when
they fell. This is why rollercoaster go so fast because they take advantage of the force of gravity.
Also gravity makes things appear to weigh more than they actually do because of this downward
pull.