Projectile Motion Lab Report

This experiment introduces kinematics, an important physics concept describing objects in motion, to explore projectile motion in two dimensions. The kinematics of motion can be expressed by certain equations, which show the relationships between velocity, acceleration, time, and displacement. Two experiments were conducted to utilize two specific equations; one by launching a ball horizontally to investigate the time of flight, and another by launching the ball at different angles to determine its horizontal range. A projectile launcher was used to carry out both experiments, along with a flight pad (for the first experiment) and a landing site (for the second experiment). When all the final values were calculated and gathered, the results

Kinematics refers to the motion of objects without taking note of the forces that act upon that object, while projectile motion is a form of movement where an object is thrown from the surface and travels along a curved path that is just controlled by gravity. As a result of neglecting air resistance, gravity would be the only force affecting the system and thus, the acceleration due to gravity would only affect the vertical displacement and vertical velocity of the object. The horizontal component of the velocity remains unchanged throughout its motion. In this experiment, the time of flight and range of the object were investigated by using a projectile launcher. The ball was either launched by short range or medium range, which is more powerful than the short range (ball travels

Since the ball was not launched horizontally, initial velocity was taken into consideration. The ball was launched at increasing angles of 10° from a starting angle of 15°. The range, R, was calculated by using the initial velocity and the initial angle of the launch, because the horizontal range of the projectile is defined as the horizontal distance traveled by the projectile when it returns to the height at which it was originally launched. As a result, this gives the equation R = (v02sin2θ/g). However, the maximum value of sin2θ = 1 or when θ = 45°. In other words, the range will be at its maximum when the angle of projection is θ=45°. As the experiment progressed, the ranges for the ball being launched at an angle greater than 45° would decrease. Both the measured and calculated ranges were compared, and all values should be similar. With limited data, such as initial velocity or displacement, it is possible to determine the time of flight or range of the projectile motion of an