Many physics textbooks start with kinematics. In the lab, students observe the motions, describe and make predictions, and get acquainted with basic kinematics quantities and their meaning. Then they can perform calculations and compare the results with experimental findings. In this paper we describe an experiment that is not often done, but is interesting and attractive to students—the ballistic cart,1 i.e., the shooting of a ball from a cart moving along a slope. For that, one has to be familiar with one-dimensional uniform motion and one-dimensional motion with constant acceleration, as well as curvilinear motion that is a combination of such motions.1,2 The experimental results confirm theoretical predictions.
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2011
American Association of Physics Teachers
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