Cart with Cannon
Safety Warnings
Warning: Do Not Look Down Barrel
Purpose
A ball launched vertically from a moving cart follows a parabolic arc in the lab frame but travels straight up and down in the cart's frame — and lands back in the cart either way. Demonstrates reference-frame dependence of trajectories and the independence of horizontal and vertical motion.
Figure 1:
The ballistic cart accessory launches a ball vertically in the cart's reference frame while moving horizontally along a track, demonstrating frame-dependent motion and projectile independence.