PROJECTILE MOTION
Mathematical
Applications
PROCEDURES FOR PROBLEM SOLVING
HORIZONTALLY LAUNCHED PROJECTILES
 Carefully read the problem and list known and
unknown information in terms of the symbols of the
kinematic equations. For convenience sake, make a
table with horizontal information on one side and
vertical information on the other side.
 Identify the unknown quantity that the problem
requests you to solve for.
 Select either a horizontal or vertical equation to
solve for any additional information that you must
have to solve for the unknown requested.
 (Usually, if a horizontal equation is used to solve for time, then
a vertical equation can be used to solve for the final unknown
quantity.)
PROCEDURES FOR PROBLEM SOLVING
NON-HORIZONTALLY LAUNCHED
PROJECTILES
 Use the given values of the initial velocity (the
magnitude and the angle) to determine the
horizontal and vertical components of the velocity
(v ix and v iy ).
 Carefully read the problem and list known and
unknown information in terms of the symbols of the
kinematic equations. For convenience sake, make a
table with horizontal information on one side and
vertical information on the other side .
 Identify the unknown quantity that the problem
requests you to solve for.
PROCEDURES FOR PROBLEM SOLVING
NON-HORIZONTALLY LAUNCHED
PROJECTILES
 Select either a horizontal or vertical equation to
solve for the time of flight of the projectile. For non horizontally launched projectiles, the second
equation listed among the vertical equations ( v fy = v iy
+ a y *t) is usually the most useful equation .