Design Lab for students As a part time instructor, I was given a design lab that I would create and implement for students. For acceleration due to gravity that is not replicating overused labs related to measuring period vs length, angle or mass, please advise.

Ty Moore

Ty Moore

Answered question

2022-11-02

Design Lab for students
As a part time instructor, I was given a design lab that I would create and implement for students. For acceleration due to gravity that is not replicating overused labs related to measuring period vs length, angle or mass, please advise.

Answer & Explanation

Aedan Hatfield

Aedan Hatfield

Beginner2022-11-03Added 16 answers

I can think of one entertaining variation on a pendulum, and that's the ballistic pendulum. Make a stationary pendulum with a rigid connecting rod (no rope). Arrange for an impact with a horizontally moving body of known mass and velocity. Vary the momentum of the impactor until the pendulum does a perfect (or as close as feasible) 180 degree swing. When it pauses at the top, you know that m v 2 2 = m g h. Since h = 2 R you can calculate g if you know v. And you can include the effects of either an elastic or inelastic collision in determining v. Since the pendulum weight is stationary at both top and bottom of the path, rotational effects are not in play.
Note that this does not depend either on mass or angle. Of course, it doesn't teach anything about the more common variety of pendulum, but I just thought I'd offer it.
It will let you determine g.
EDIT - Rather than using an impact, you might do something like have a cart carry the pendulum weight at a known speed. Have the pendulum rod somehow hook onto the weight and lift it off the cart. I'm hesitant about this approach, since it would be necessary to provide a fairly sophisticated hook arrangement to keep the weight aligned to the arm during motion. But it would get around the necessity of calculating collision dynamics.
END EDIT

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