Free Fall essays

Free Fall essays Objective: To measure the acceleration of gravity using a tape timer DC power supply Mass Piece Procedure: We started by calibrating the tape timer. We do this so that we know how long it takes for the hammer to strike down each time. We did this by starting the tape timer and pulling a sample piece of tape through it while someone timed how long it took for the tape to be pulled through. We did it three times, however, we never adjusted the voltage, as that would change the period of the timer. Afterwards, we counted the dots and found the average. The average that we found is the period of the hammer arm. Afterwards we found the period of the hammer it was time to measure the acceleration of gravity. We constructed a support to hold the tape time in the air (like the one above). We then ran a strip of paper through the time and attached a mass to it. We made sure that there was no slack in the paper, and that it could fall uninhibited to the floor. Then we started the tape timer and let the mass fall. Finally we measured the distance between the dots on the paper strip and recorded it in our data tables. Data: We used a ruler to measure the dots, and a ruler only measures to 1/10 of a cm (.1). We had to estimate to get the hundredth place. 1) Why would you have to remove the slack before letting the mass fall? A: We had to remove the slack before letting the mass fall because if we didnt, then the pa ...