A LESSON PLAN ON THE PHYSICS EXPERIMENT CARRIED OUT BY PORTUGAL

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, 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. 

Conclusions 

Using equation (start velocity is zero)

y = 0.5gt2

We get the slope of 4.777, which returns g = 9,55 ms-2.

The experiment was conducted at sea level of 34m.

Difference = |9,80-9,55| x 100/9,80 = 2,6%

The more measures we get, the better approach g we get.

Bibliography