Uniform Acceleration Concept

Demonstrations in Uniform Acceleration

Clear acrylic cylinder mounted horizontally on a black metal bracket attached to a bench support, with a valve fitting at one end for vacuum pump connection

Freefall in Vacuum

Shows that all objects fall at the same rate in the absence of air resistance, regardless of mass. Students see directly that air resistance — not mass — causes different …
Yellow University Physics textbook with a large brown-and-white barred feather resting on top

Book and Feather

Creates cognitive dissonance about free fall by first dropping a book and feather separately, then together. When the feather rides on the book, no air flows between them, eliminating drag …
White hinged release platform with two chrome ball bearings of different sizes sitting in circular recesses, electromagnetic latch mechanism in the center
Safety

Galileo Ball Drop

Two ball bearings of very different masses are dropped simultaneously from 6.3 meters onto a sounding board. They hit at the same instant, demonstrating that gravitational acceleration is independent of …
Yellow university physics textbook by Sears, Zemansky, and Young, fifth edition, placed next to a white sheet of paper on a gray surface

Book and Paper

Creates cognitive dissonance by first dropping a book and flat paper (book wins), then crumpling the paper and dropping again (they land together). Shows that gravitational acceleration is independent of …
Metal baking pan centered on a table with two strings of nuts laid out on either side — shorter equally-spaced string on the left, longer quadratically-spaced string on the right — with a wooden meter stick above

Equal Time vs. Equal Distance Drop

Two strings of nuts are dropped onto a metal pan. Equally spaced nuts produce impacts that speed up; nuts spaced at 1, 4, 9, 16... times a base length produce …
PASCO aluminum air track on a green lab bench with adjustable metal leveling feet, a yellow measurement scale along the track, wooden blocks underneath for tilting, and the air blower unit at the right end

Tilted Air Track

A nearly frictionless air track tilted at an angle produces constant acceleration. The glider bounces off a rubber bumper at the end, and equally-spaced markers along the track enable quantitative …
Tilted air track on a lecture bench with yellow position markers (-5 to 5), two photogates with digital displays, wooden blocks elevating the left end, glider visible as motion blur near center, and air blower connected at right
Safety

Acceleration on an Air Track

A tilted air track with photogates measures transit times to demonstrate uniform acceleration. The glider takes the same time through each photogate on the way up as on the way …
PASCO fan cart with wooden propeller and guard ring on a black base, sitting on an aluminum dynamics track spanning two green demo tables, with yellow sticky-note markers numbered -5 to 5 hung at equal intervals along the track

Fan Cart Acceleration

A fan cart provides constant thrust on a level track, producing uniform acceleration. Equally-spaced position markers along the track let students observe that the cart passes successive markers more and …
Black wooden trough with a sinusoidal white powder trace whose wavelength increases from left to right, flanked by two meter sticks, with a wooden block elevating the left end
Safety

Duff's Inclined Plane

A steel ball rolls down a tilted curved trough, leaving a sinusoidal trace in lycopodium powder. The half-wavelengths mark equal time intervals, and measuring successive spacings shows they increase by …