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Date Submitted: 11/09/2015 03:28 PM
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Undergraduate Labs
One-‐Dimensional Motion
The physical quantities position, displacement, velocity and acceleration are the basis of understanding
objects in motion. These quantities are useful at all length and time scales and are applied to
understand the motion of orbits of stars in a galaxy, the rotation of gears in a machine, the flow of red
blood cells in an artery and the movement of atoms in a molecule. Position , velocity and
acceleration are related by
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This means, the slope of an vs. graph is the velocity in the -‐direction and the slope of a vs. graph
is the acceleration in the -‐direction. The motion of an object can be recorded in real-‐time through the
use of a motion sensor or a video camera. We will be using both in this lab.
Our motion sensor sends out short ultrasonic pulses (sound waves that are inaudible to humans) that
are reflected by an object a distance away from the sensor. By measuring the time it takes for an
emitted pulse to reflect off of an object and return, the sensor is able to measure the position , of the
object as a function of time. From this data, a computer is used to calculate the velocity and...