Core Practical: Investigating Motion
2 guided lessons · 18 checks · 1. Forces & Motion → Movement & Position
Guided lessons for this note
Which concept don't you understand yet?
We'll explain it simply and check your understanding. Pick any lesson — any order works.
0 of 18 checks correct so far
Lesson 1 of 2
Aim, variables and apparatus
A good investigation is planned before anything falls. This lesson names what is being investigated, fixes which quantities change and which are held still, and lists the instruments that will do the measuring, down to the resolution each one offers.
What you know already
Measuring the pace of a falling cone directly is close to impossible by eye, so this core practical goes the long way round: fix a drop height, time the fall, and divide. This lesson sets up the apparatus, the variables and the method, then teaches how to judge and improve the timings you collect.
Key points of understanding
- The aim is to investigate the motion of everyday objects, such as a paper cone or a tennis ball, by determining their speed of fall.
- Because speed is hard to measure directly, the practical measures distance moved and time taken and derives the speed from them.
- The independent variable is the drop distance and the dependent variable is the time taken; the same object is reused so the comparison is fair.
- A stopwatch times the fall and a tape measure or metre rule sets the height; the rule resolves to 1 mm and the clock to 0.01 s.
Choose a confidence level to continue.
Prefer to read it all at once? Show the full lesson as a page
1.Aim, variables and apparatus
A good investigation is planned before anything falls. This lesson names what is being investigated, fixes which quantities change and which are held still, and lists the instruments that will do the measuring, down to the resolution each one offers.
Key points
- The aim is to investigate the motion of everyday objects, such as a paper cone or a tennis ball, by determining their speed of fall.
- Because speed is hard to measure directly, the practical measures distance moved and time taken and derives the speed from them.
- The independent variable is the drop distance and the dependent variable is the time taken; the same object is reused so the comparison is fair.
- A stopwatch times the fall and a tape measure or metre rule sets the height; the rule resolves to 1 mm and the clock to 0.01 s.
First pass
Guided content from the SME authoring corpus — note rn_pfndTqR6DTJGZ8xQ, pinned at aa6485187429 · promoted SyllabAI/syllabai-resources b3caaaa90c5e
