Lab 2: Air Tracks and Sextants

Winter 2004.


General instructions.

  1. Please check with me or one of the TAs before going on to the next exercise.
  2. Please hand in only one write-up per group.


Air Tracks

Don't worry about getting terribly precise results. However, do make velocity measurements as well as you can.

  1. Level the air track.
  2. Take a cart and give it a shove. What happens to the cart? What interactions is the cart participating in?
  3. Reproduce the experiment discussed in Figure C3.3.
  4. Reproduce the experiment discussed in Figure C3.4.
  5. Reproduce the experiment discussed in Figure C3.5.
  6. Imagine a situation where two carts collide, but they stick together? What do you think would happen? Be sure to write down your prediction. Then do the experiment. Use duct tape to make the carts stick.

Sextants

Trigonometry Warm Up.

  1. You stand 50 meters away from a flag pole. You have to look at an angle of 53 degrees from the horizon to see the top of the pole. What is the pole's height?
  2. You stand 75 meters away from a tree that's 100 meters tall. At what angle must you tilt your head so that you look straight at the top of the tree?

Applied Trigonometry

  1. Grab a sextant (or two). Go outside and figure out how to use it. (Read the manual and talk to me.)
  2. Measure the height of the large pine tree on the North end of the field between the dorms and the arts and sciences building.


Operational Definition of Mass

Note: I'm not sure how well this is going to work. But let's give it a try. Even if it doesn't "work", I think it'll still be worthwhile.
  1. Re-read the first part of section C3.4 where mass is defined operationally.
  2. Set up the experiment as best you can. You'll probably want to make "tracks" for the different balls to roll in.
  3. Determine the mass of one of the balls. What units is your answer in?
  4. Compare with the weight of the balls measured on one of the scales in the lab.



[Dave] [Physics I] [COA]

Web page maintained by dave@hornacek.coa.edu.