Lab Report On Projectile Motion

Subject: Introductory Physics 1 Lab
Instructor: Dr. Dmitry Beznosko
Lab# 1: “Projectile Motion”
Date: 27.08.2015
Section Thursday, 12-1:50pm

Dana Mamasheva
Alibek Abilev
Almat Sissekenov

Abstract

The projectile was launched horizontally at 5 different angles 10 times for each angle. The range the projectile travelled was recorded and 45º angle was found to give the highest distance travelled by the projectile. The initial velocity was found to be almost the same at all firings. Any possible sources of error were analyzed. This lab increased understanding of projectile motion.

Introduction

Projectile motion is the two-dimensional motion in which the projectile, object or particle, is thrown horizontally and moves along its trajectory. The gravity is the only force acting on the projectile. Therefore the horizontal motion and the vertical motion are independent of each other. Moreover, the horizontal motion does not have acceleration and therefore its velocity is constant. In contrast the vertical motion has constant acceleration equal to g. This experiment was performed using the projectile launcher, a projectile, a ruler and the target. As a projectile the small steel ball was used and the target was the clean sheet of paper. The ball was projected horizontally at 5 different angles 25º, 35º, 45º, 55º, 65º 10 times for each angle. Angle of 45º was assumed to give the highest range for a projectile. This hypothesis was proved experimentally