Free fall with MakeyMakey
Main objective:
The object of this experiment is to determine the value of the acceleration of gravity by measuring the time of a freely falling object using MakeyMakey and Scratch to get the falling time.
Material
Makey-makey, electric cables, laptop or notebook with Scratch, rubber/ball (falling object), ruler, holders of 2 m (for cables), aluminum foil or copper cables.
Introduction
An object dropped near the earth’s surface will accelerate uniformly with the acceleration due to gravity (g) toward the earth.
Thus, according to the equation describing motion for a uniformly accelerated object, its position y as a function of time t is y=1/2gt2.
If we graph distance fallen vs. time squared the data should yield a linear graph similar to the one shown below.
Scratch code