A new system for tracking a metal ball rolling on the slope of the touch panel of a tablet computer was developed. The widespread introduction of tablets in educational environments allows the use of a convenient dynamic measurement in schools.

Inspired by a commercially produced scattering experiment that was popular beginning in the 1960s, we have developed a Nerf-projectile-based educational activity to demonstrate the basics of particle scattering experiments.

As smartphones have become a part of our everyday life, their sensors have successfully been used to allow data acquisition with these readily available devices in a variety of different smartphone-based school experiments. Such experiments most commonly take advantage of the accelerometer and gyroscope. A less frequently used sensor in…

Atwood invented a machine in the 1780s that enabled him to observe the motion of a falling body as slowly as desired. This machine was equipped with the necessary means to measure the distance covered by the body and the time taken. With this data, it was possible, in addition to studying the falling motion, to calculate the local gravitational…

In this paper, we utilize the readily known theory of the ideal transformer to furnish a self-contained qualitative explanation on the AC-powered Thomson jumping ring (TJR) experiment.

An experiment is described where a billiard ball and a golf ball were projected with backspin on a horizontal surface to measure the transition from sliding to rolling. During both phases, the torque on the ball is affected by an offset in the line of action of the normal reaction force.

Here, a relatively simple laboratory experiment of a physical pendulum, suitable for students of science and engineering in the first courses of university physics, is presented to illustrate its dynamic behavior and to determine its inertia moment. To this end, a long wooden rod of length L = 99.8 cm and cross-section radius R = 1.73 cm was used…

The present study reports an Arduino-based STEM education material that resolves the kinematics of a moving object, specifically focusing on two dimensional motion of the object. Throughout the work, a sample application that can be prepared in a classroom where students are active and including the acquisitions of Technology, Engineering, Physics…

The interference pattern between two harmonic oscillations with slightly different frequencies are called beats. The beats, as a combined motion, have two different periods, one approximately equal to the period of the original oscillations, and another that is significantly longer and is related to the variable amplitude of the motion. The main…

A simple experiment is described to compare the descent time between two vertically separated points when an object slides down tracks of varying shape. A surprising result is that the descent time is shortest when it follows a circular track rather than a cycloidal track. Cycloidal tracks are usually predicted to result in the shortest descent…

If a smooth ball is dropped vertically without spin on a smooth horizontal surface then one might expect the ball to bounce vertically without spin. If it does not then the centre of mass of the ball does not coincide with its geometric centre. An experiment is described where a billiard ball and a superball are deliberately biassed by adding a…

The stately fall of magnets through conducting pipes is a favorite classroom and laboratory activity used in teaching electromagnetic induction, Lenz's law, eddy currents, electromagnetic braking, and even Newton's third law. When a neodymium magnet is used, the terminal velocity is reached in just a few milliseconds as the induced eddy currents…

This case study investigated the conceptual understanding of the Simple Pendulum topic amongst physics student-teachers using online experiments. A pre-experimental design was utilised, employing a one-group pretest-posttest approach with 20 student-teachers. The research instruments included a highspeed video activity conducted within Online…

A loop-the-loop experiment is described to show how sliding friction affects motion of the ball. Conservation of energy can be used to explain the basic physics, but significant energy loss is observed in practice and expands the usefulness of this apparatus as a teaching tool.

A loop-the-loop experiment usually involves a ball rolling around a vertical loop. A different version of the experiment is described where a nut was allowed to slide around a vertical loop. In both experiments there is a large decrease in kinetic energy when the ball or the nut first enters the loop.