Centripetal Force Activity; Physics Form Four KSSM

Assalamualaikum wbt and good day everyone.

With the new syllabus and new text book and new chapter in Physics: Chapter 3 Gravitation, brings the new hope, anxiety and excitement all at once.

I feel blessed that even though we had our last lesson on 5.2 Damping and Resonance but because of the 'PENJAJARAN semula syllabus', we are able the demonstrate the centripetal force by using the centripetal kit. Chapter 3: Gravitation, consist of 3 sub-chapters namely;

3.1 Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation
3.2 Kepler's Law
3.3 Man-made Satellites

This is the new experiment for secondary school and my first experience to do this activity. You can see how excited I am to prove the physics theory with the experiment results!


Theory:
For a body in circular motion, a force acts on the body, in a direction towards the centre  of the circle. This force is called Centripetal Force.

The magnitude of the centripetal force depends on the mass of the body, the linear speed, and the radius of the circle. Given;

Aim: To understand centripetal force using centripetal force kit

Apparatus: Centripetal Force Kit, 50 g slotted weight,  stopper, ruler, mass balance and stopwatch.

Procedure:
(Refer to Physics Form Four textbook page 89)

Results:

Time taken for 10 revolution = 12.6 s
thus, time taken for 1 revolution = 1.26 s

Smartphones is utilised to record the activity and online stopwatch to record 10 revolution of the rubber stopper

From the result, we can calculate the linear speed of the object;

With the measured values of m, v and r, calculate the centripetal force, Fc by using the centripetal formula:

Discussion:

1. The weights cause a tension in the string that acts as centripetal force during the circular motion of the rubber stopper.

2. When the rubber stopper makes a circular motion, the stretched string exerts a force in the rubber stopper. The direction of Force is towards the centre of the circle.

3. The speed of the rubber stopper is directly proportional to the centripetal force.

4. When the rubber stopper makes a circular motion with a smaller radius, the centripetal force ...................................................

5. Data from this experiment also can be utilised to determine the gravitational acceleration, g
                                           

                   

Gravitational acceleration calculated from this activity is 12.4 m s-2 with 26% error from the actual value of g  which is 9.8 m s-2.


Conclusion:
The centripetal kit is able to to explain about centripetal force.


Yihaaaa!!!