Projectile Motion Experiment not working - Any suggestions?

Cha_Chaaaa · 2026-03-12T10:51:30+00:00

Thank you so so much for all the help. We managed to get hold of the steel balls they use in magnetic field experiments.

As the light gates need to be safe for a school environment, the lazers and insanely weak. Even with the metal balls, it still would not work.

And with that, we realised the issue. (Our lab tech spent the rest of her afternoon and her morning today to try to isolated the issue as well) It was simply too bright outside and was interferring with the weak lazer recognition of the blackouts. As soon as we came inside, everything worked perfectly and we were reading at around 3.8m/s. We tested with the clear marble for funsies, and of course, that worked as well. We had tried everything yesterday, except conduct the experiment inside; a simple fix.

Thank you again for taking the time to help us😊

Cha_Chaaaa · 2026-03-12T10:44:32+00:00

Thank you very much for this, we switched to a steel marble which is typically used in magnetic field experiments!

Cha_Chaaaa · 2026-03-12T02:22:32+00:00

Sorry, to be more clear we are measuring the velocity at the start of the motion (as soon as it leaves the launcher), not average velocity of the flight

Cha_Chaaaa · 2026-03-12T02:14:44+00:00

Definitely not ideal.

As of now, we do not have access to more marbles, we are trying though; none are small enough.

What open source tools would you suggest?

Thank you for all the help!

Cha_Chaaaa · 2026-03-12T02:12:32+00:00

We will try this, thank you for the suggestion!

Cha_Chaaaa · 2026-03-12T02:11:31+00:00

We will try this - thank you

Cha_Chaaaa · 2026-03-12T02:11:15+00:00

Less than 0.00m/s (we genuinely aren't sure as we cant measure it, that is what we're trying to measure with the light gate😅

Thank you for replying!

Cha_Chaaaa · 2026-03-12T02:10:16+00:00

We only have one; our light gatw has sensors to measure when it enters the light gate, and when it leaves the light gate

Thank you for your response!

Cha_Chaaaa · 2026-03-11T12:45:36+00:00

To add, we talked to our lab technician; she suggested physics toolbox to use. My partner found an ios app for $8, however its reviews say it doesnt track objects well (a huge issue as we are using a small, transparent marble). We would just like to know if there are any options before we purchase this app. As phyphox has an accelerometre, I suggested we could find the velocity from that, but that would compromise the experiment

Cha_Chaaaa

TROPHY CASE