TITLE:
The Local Acceleration Due to Gravity as Determined with a Cart and Track
AUTHORS:
Joaquim Bocresion
KEYWORDS:
Gravity, Local Acceleration Due to Gravity
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Applied Sciences,
Vol.13 No.9,
September
28,
2023
ABSTRACT: The aim of this lab is to determine an experimental
value for the local acceleration due to gravity. In order to do this, a cart
was released down a track and allowed to pass through two photogates recording
the entrance and exit times of the cart. These times along with the length of a
light blocking strip on the cart, were used to calculate the acceleration of the cart down the track at
various angles, and through linearization, the experimental value for the local acceleration
due to gravity was determined to be 10.027 ± 0.312 m/s2. This value
has a percent error of only 2.2% from the accepted value of 9.8 m/s2,
which proves that this method of determining local acceleration due to gravity
can be effective and accurate. Additionally, this experimental value shows how
similar the approximation is to the accepted
value.