4/27 Pendulum Lab

Purpose: To find the launch speed of a ball using a ballistic pendulum, with conservation of momentum and energy.

Procedure:

FIGURE (1)

We used the ballistic pendulum shown in FIGURE (1). We took measurements of the mass of the ball, holder, and length of the wire, which were 7.67 g, 80.9 g, and 20.2cm respectively. Since we wanted to find the speed of the launch, we needed to find theta. With this apparatus all we had to was launch the ball and the holder pushed a wire to a certain angle measure, which we were able to just read. We calculated this to be 17 degrees. Once we had all the measurements, we were ready to calculate velocity (FIGURE (2)).

FIGURE (2)

Using momentum and energy, we were able to find the speed of the launch to be 4.80 m/s

Conclusion: 

We also calculated uncertainty for the speed since we had the uncertainty of all of our measurements. (FIGURE (3) & (4) )

FIGURE (3)

FIGURE (4)

Errors in this lab would have come from our measurements.