Practical 2

Topic

: Force and motion

Activity 1: Identify different types of force in different contexts.

Purpose

: To identify the different types of force in different contexts.

Theoretical
knowledge

A force is a push or pull acting upon an object as a result of its

interaction with another object. There are a variety of types of forces.

Previously in this lesson, a variety of force types were placed into two
broad category headings on the basis of whether the force resulted from
the contact or non-contact of the two interacting objects.

Contact Forces

Action-at-a-Distance Forces

Frictional Force
Tension Force
Normal Force
Air Resistance Force
Applied Force
Spring Force

Gravitational Force
Electrical Force
Magnetic Force

Type of Force
Description of Force
(and Symbol)

Applied Force
Fapp
Gravity Force
(also known as Weight)
Fgrav

An applied force is a force which is applied to an

object by a person or another object. If a person is
pushing a desk across the room, then there is
applied force acting upon the object. The applied
force is the force exerted on the desk by the person.
The force of gravity is the force with which the earth,
moon, or other massively large object attracts
another object towards itself. By definition, this is the
weight of the object. All objects upon earth
experience a force of gravity which is directed

"downward" towards the center of the earth. The

force of gravity on earth is always equal to the weight
of the object as found by the equation:
Fgrav = m * g
where g = 9.8 m/s2 (on Earth)
and m = mass (in kg)
(Caution: do not confuse weight with mass.)

Normal Force
Fnorm

Friction Force
Ffrict

The normal force is the support force exerted upon

an object which is in contact with another stable
object. For example, if a book is resting upon a
surface, then the surface is exerting an upward force
upon the book in order to support the weight of the
book. On occasions, a normal force is exerted
horizontally between two objects which are in contact
with each other. For instance, if a person leans
against a wall, the wall pushes horizontally on the
person.
The friction force is the force exerted by a surface as
an object moves across it or makes an effort to move
across it. There are at least two types of friction force
- sliding and static friction. Thought it is not always
the cast, the friction force often opposes the motion
of an object. For example, if a book slides across the
surface of a desk, then the desk exerts a friction
force in the opposite direction of its motion. Friction
results from the two surfaces being pressed together
closely, causing intermolecular attractive forces
between molecules of different surfaces. As such,
friction depends upon the nature of the two surfaces
and upon the degree to which they are pressed
together. The maximum amount of friction force
which a surface can exert upon an object can be
calculated using the formula below:

The friction force is discussed in more detail later on

this page.

Air Resistance Force

Fair

Tension Force
Ftens

Spring Force
Fspring

Materials

The air resistance is a special type of frictional force

which acts upon objects as they travel through the
air. The force of air resistance is often observed to
oppose the motion of an object. This force will
frequently be neglected due to its negligible
magnitude (and due to the fact that it is
mathematically difficult to predict its value). It is most
noticeable for objects which travel at high speeds
(e.g., a skydiver or a downhill skier) or for objects
with large surface areas. Air resistance will be
discussed in more detail in Lesson 3.
The tension force is the force which is transmitted
through a string, rope, cable or wire when it is pulled
tight by forces acting from opposite ends. The
tension force is directed along the length of the wire
and pulls equally on the objects on the opposite ends
of the wire.
The spring force is the force exerted by a
compressed or stretched spring upon any object
which is attached to it. An object which compresses
or stretches a spring is always acted upon by a force
which restores the object to its rest or equilibrium
position. For most springs (specifically, for those
which are said to obey "Hooke's Law"), the
magnitude of the force is directly proportional to the
amount of stretch or compression of the spring.

:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.

A wooden block
A ping- pong ball
A stretched wire on a wooden block
A beaker
A book

Procedures :
1. A wooden block is placed on the floor. The wooden block has been
given a push and the observation is recorded.
2. A ping- pong ball is thrown up into the air. The observation is
recorded.
3. A piece of wire was tie tightly between 2 nails hammered into a
piece of wood. The wire has been touched. The observation is
recorded.
4. A ping- pong ball is placed in a beaker of water. The ball has been
tried to pushing into the water. The observation is recorded.
5. A book is placed on the palm of my hand. The observation is
recorded.
6. The inferences for each of these observations are stated like in the
table below.
Results

Procedures

Observation

Inferences
The wooden block moved
because a force has been
applied on the wooden

Procedure 1

The wooden block was

moved and then it stops.

block. After that it has

been stop because some
force such as the
resistance and the gravity
forces also had on the

Procedure 2

The ping- pong was going

wooden block.
The ping- pong was going

up after being thrown and

up because a force has

then it drops at the same

been given to the ball.

place it has been thrown.

While going up, there was

a resistance force that had
contact on the ball. This
had made it slow. There is
also a gravity force on the
ping- ping. The gravity

force is higher than the

other forces. This had
made an unbalance force.
So, the ball is fall back.
The wire was move jerkily
because of the force that
The wire was move jerkily
Procedure 3

and then it has stop and

being normal back.

has been given to it. So,

there will be the tension
force. After several
seconds, it had stop
because there were no
force was given after that.
The ping- pong can be in
the water because of the

While we push the pingpong down towards we

Procedure 4

had fill that it is hard. After

we let go the ping- pong, it
has been float on the
surface of the water.

force that has been given

by us. We had pushed it.
While we push the pingpong, we also had filled
some force at our hand
from the ball. This is
because there were a
force in the water which
pushing our hand up.
The book was heavy
because there was a force
that had contact with the

Procedure 5

The book is heavy.

book. So, we had tried to

make the book to stay on
its position. That was why
we can fill that the book
was heavy.

Conclusion : The inferences are accepted. This is because there were such forces
that have been contact with the objects that have been used in this

experiment. The force had contact on the objects by make it slow or

stop, float, changing direction and many else.

Activity 2: Measuring the acceleration of a freely falling object.

Purpose

: To measure the acceleration of a freely falling object.

Theoretical
knowledge

Systematic experiments on freely falling objects and objects

moving on inclined planes were carried out by Galileo Galilei (15641642). Freely falling objects are objects not supported by anything and
not acted on by any forces except the gravitational force. Near the
surface of the earth such objects are accelerating. This acceleration is
due to the gravitational force acting between the objects and the earth.
The direction of the gravitational acceleration vector is towards the
center of the earth. Its magnitude decreases as one over the square of
the distance from the center of the earth. The radius of the earth is
6368 km. If you climb a 1000 m high mountain, your distance from the
center of the earth changes by (1/6368)100 % = 0.016 % and the
magnitude of the acceleration vector changes by (1/6368) 2100 % = 2.4
10-6 %. For all objects near the surface of the earth the distance from
the center is nearly constant, and the magnitude of the gravitational
acceleration vector is therefore approximately constant. We denote the
gravitational acceleration vector by g. Its magnitude is g = 9.8 m/s2 and
its direction is straight downward. Over small distances, when the
curvature of the earth's surface can be neglected, the direction of the
gravitational acceleration vector is also nearly constant.
Near the surface of the earth g is the same for all objects. All
objects accelerate at approximately the same rate.

Freely falling

objects are therefore objects, which are moving with constant

acceleration g.

From other resources, it says that a free-falling object is an

object which is falling under the sole influence of gravity. Any object
which is being acted upon only be the force of gravity is said to be in a
state of free fall. There are two important motion characteristics which
are true of free-falling objects:

Free-falling objects do not encounter air resistance.

All free-falling objects (on Earth) accelerate downwards at a

rate of 9.8 m/s/s (often approximated as 10 m/s/s for back-of-theenvelope calculations)

Because

free-falling

objects

are

accelerating

downwards at a rate of 9.8 m/s/s, a ticker tape trace or dot

diagram of its motion would depict acceleration. The dot
diagram at the right depicts the acceleration of a freefalling object. The position of the object at regular time
intervals - say, every 0.1 second - is shown. The fact that
the distance which the object travels every interval of time
is increasing is a sure sign that the ball is speeding up as it
falls downward. Recall from an earlier lesson, that if an
object travels downward and speeds up, then its
acceleration is downward.
Free-fall acceleration is often witnessed in a physics classroom
by means of an ever-popular strobe light demonstration. The room is
darkened and a jug full of water is connected by a tube to a medicine
dropper. The dropper drips water and the strobe illuminates the falling
droplets at a regular rate - say once every 0.2 seconds. Instead of
seeing a stream of water free-falling from the medicine dropper, several
consecutive drops with increasing separation distance are seen. The
pattern of drops resembles the dot diagram shown in the graphic at the
right
Materials

i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
vii.

A ticker- timer
Ticker tape
Clamp
Power pack
Connecting wires
Masses of 300g, 450g, and 600g
Cello tape

Procedures :
1. A chair is placed on top of a table. A ticker- timer was clamp onto the
upper side of the chair.
2. A piece of ticker tape is fixed through the ticker- timer and then a
300g mass was cellotape to the tape.
3. The ticker- timer was switch on and the mass was let to fall freely
downwards.
4. The tape was cut into 2 dots strips and arranged to form a graph.
5. Step 3 is repeated by using masses of 450g and 600g.
6. A graph for each case was build from their strips and then was
determined their acceleration.

Diagram of experiment
Results

:
Mass (g)

Acceleration (ms-2)

300

9.5

450

10.1

600

11.6

Conclusion : As the conclusion, my friend and I have found out that every object in
this world have the same mass. It also has the same acceleration while

it is freely falling. This is because; the gravity on Earth is same at any

places although the object has different mass.
Discussion

1. In activity 1, we have done the experiment for identify the different types of
force in different contexts.
2. There were several types of forces such as tension, thrust, normal, weight
and friction.
3. All of these forces always happen in our daily life. So, I had prepared the
table to list the forces that happen for each procedure.
Diagrams
1.

Description of forces in the diagram

Before the wooden block moved, it was in
balanced force. This is because there were the
normal and weight force that were contact with
the wooden block. So, it staid in it position.
While we pushed the wooden block, we had
given it a force. So, it has moved. There are also

2.

A force that was contact with it which is the

resistance. The resistance was made by the
floor. So, it will make it stop after several
seconds.
After it stops, there were several forces that
contact on it which are the friction force, normal
force and weight force.

3.

While we touch the wire, there was a force that

contact on it. It is the tension force. It has made
it stretched firmly.
So, the wire has moved jerkily because of the
force.

4.

There was a surface tension on the water in the

beaker. It has made the ping- pong being on the
surface.
While we pushing the ping- pong ball into the
water, we have gave a force on the ping- pong
so that it will be in the water.
We can fill some force that pushing on our hand.
This is because of the force in the water which is
adhesion and cohesion.
After we let go the ping- pong, the ball will come
up to the surface. This is because of the force
that contact on it. The force is thrust force.

5.

We can fill the heavy of the book because of the

force that contact on it. The force is weight. It
happens because of the gravity.
While the book is on our hand, we also have
given a force on it which is the normal force to
maintain the position of the book. So, there was
balanced force.

4. In this experiment, we can reduce the resistance by use the oil so that the
friction coefetion, can be reducing. We also can use the ball barring in
our daily life so that there will be no more problems about the resistance
that have made by the surface.

5. Students also need to know the name of force too. This is because; they
will not know and cannot recognize the forces that have been contact on
the object the used.
6. Newton's Second Law of Motion is concerned with the effect that
unbalanced forces have on motion.
7. An unbalanced force acting on an object causes it to accelerate. There are
two points to note about the acceleration of an object when an unbalanced
force acts on it:
The bigger the unbalanced force acting on the object the bigger the acceleration of
the object.
The more mass the object has the more inclined it is to resist any change in its
motion. For example, if you apply the same unbalanced force to a mass of 1000 kg
and a mass of 1 kg, the acceleration (change in motion) of the 1000 kg mass will
be much less than that of the 1 kg mass.
8. Newton's Second Law provides a relationship between the unbalanced
force on the object, the mass of the object and the acceleration that is
produced: unbalanced force = mass x acceleration or F = ma.
9. The unbalanced force F is measured in newtons (N), the mass m is
measured in kilograms (kg) and acceleration a is measured in metres per
second per second (m/s2).
10. The force can be group into 4 groups of forces. There are:
a) The strong force- The strongest of all the forces but it is effective
only at short separations. At greater distances, this force is
negligible.
b) The weak force- It is stronger than the gravitational force. The weak
force is exerted between a class of particles called the leptons and
hadrons.
c) The electromagnetic force- Electric and magnetic forces are very
closely related and are unified into one force w/c is the

electromagnetic force. It is exerted on charged objects or on

magnetic objects
d) The gravitational force- Gravitational force affects anything that
has mass. It is an attraction or pull between objects
11. In both activities, we need to be carefully in what ever we do. There were
several precaution that we should follow to prevent from any uncertainty in
our result such as:
a) Our eyes must be parallel with meter rule while we try to take the
reading to prevent the random uncertainty.
b) We also need to be alert in doing the Activity 2 so that we can drop the
masses at the time.
c) We need to alert with all aspects in our observation in activity 1 so that
we will know everything that have been produced or happen.
12. In Activity 2, we need to find the acceleration for each mass.
13. The acceleration must be equal to the gravity force which is ms-2
14. The mass of an object is a measure of its resistance to being put in motion
or, if moving, its resistance to being stopped.
15. Mass is measured by comparison with a standard, such as a standard
mass of value measured in grams or kilograms.
16. Weight, however, is the pull of gravity on an object. Weight changes
depending on the location of the object. It can be found by hanging it from
a spring balance. Weight, is a force and in the metric system is measured
in Newtons. In the English system, weight is measured in pounds. Weight
is related to mass, in fact it is proportional to mass by:
Wt = mg where g is a constant
17. Using Newtons Second Law, F = ma and the fact that weight is a force,

mg = ma
18. So, the acceleration that we got from the graph for each mass must be
equal to the weight force that cause of the gravity force.
19. We can use the calculation below to get the acceleration for each mass.

20. First velocity u = cm/s

last velocity v = cm/s

v - u=
t = 4 pieces of ticker tape 0.04s
a = v u/ t (ms-2)
21. So, for each mass, their acceleration is:

300g
u = 9.6/ 0.04
= 240

v = 15.7/ 0.04
= 392.5

392.5 240 = 152.5

t = 0.04 4
= 0.16
So,
a= 152.5/ 0.16
= 953.1 cms-2 or 9.5 ms-2

450g
u = 4.8/ 0.04

v = 11.8/ 0.04

= 120

= 295

295 120 = 175

a = 175/ 0.16
= 1093.8 cms-2 or 10.1 ms-2

600g
u = 3.0/ 0.04

v = 10.4/ 0.04

= 75

= 260

260 75 = 185
a = 185 / 0.16
= 1156.3 cms-2 or 11.6 ms-2

So, for the mean of each acceleration, there were

= (9.5 + 10.1 + 11.6) / 3
a = g = 10.4 ms-2
22. From the observation that we have made from the graph we found that the
greater the mass the shorter the graph will produced.
23. This is may be because of the masses. I think that we can get the
acceleration that equal to the gravity or weight force at the first ticker or dot
if we used the grater mass.
24. For your information, this happen because force of gravity is depends on
your mass and the mass of the planet you are standing on. If you double
your mass, gravity pulls on you twice as hard. If the planet you are
standing on is twice as massive, gravity also pulls on you twice as hard.

25. The farther you are from the center of the planet, the weaker the pull
between the planet and your body. The force gets weaker quite rapidly.
26. The equation is like below:

This meant that:

a) The two "M's" on top are your mass and the planet's mass.
b) The "r" below is the distance from the center of the planet.
27. So, the acceleration of the graph for 600g can be take at it first dot is
because it has the greater mass. So, it already has the acceleration that
equal to the gravity pulls at the first dot in this experiment.
28. While the acceleration for the smaller mass such as 300g just can be equal
to the gravity is at the last dot because the nearest you the Earth, the
greatest the gravity pulls on yours.

Questions:
1. Are the values of acceleration of the different masses obtained equal
to g (acceleration due to gravity on earth)? Explain.
Yes. This is because every object on Earth with any masses will
free falling with the same acceleration. This meant that the
gravity pulls or weight force on the Earth is same which is 9.8
ms-2. So, each of mass should have the same acceleration.
What have made it to be slow or faster during the free falling is
the resistance that made by the air.

2. What conclusion can be made about the force acting on a freely

falling object?
The force is same to every object on the Earth although the
mass was different while free falling which is the acceleration is
9.8 ms-2.
3. If this experiment was done on the moon, will the value of
acceleration of the different masses obtained be equal to g? Explain.
No. It is because the moon has no gravity pulls or weight force.
So, there will be no weight. It is our mass. Its means that every
object has their own mass but do not have weight. So, there will
be no acceleration that could be calculated. It also should be
not equal to the gravity, g.

Mastery Of knowledge And Skills Questions:

1. At the end of the practical, answer the following question:
(a) What have you learnt from the practical?
After doing this practical, I have learnt about the forces and
free fall object. I have known that there were 5 forces that
often contact with us in our daily life. They are normal,
thrust, tension, weight and the friction force. Each types of
force will be acting in different part or condition. I also have
learnt about the free fall in the Activity 2 in this practical. In

this practical, it has given me much information that I even

know yet. I had known that every thing contains the different
masses. But the weight is different from the others because
the greater your mass the greater the gravity pulls. It meant
that we have different weight from each other because of the
mass but the gravity pulls that contact on every body is
same. So, the acceleration for every free falling object must
be equal to the gravity pulls which is 9.8 ms-2.
(b) Which part of the primary science curriculum teaches this
particular topic?
Level 2 (Year 4 to 6). Investigating Energy and Force. Force
and movement.
(c) Discuss how you can use the above practical in your teaching
and learning?
I will use the above practical in my class so that there will be
hands- on activities in my class. This is because the
students will be easily to remember and understand by
doing the activities by themselves. I also will ask them to do
this type of practical so that they will be more understood
on this topic. So, as a teacher I must use any style or tactic
in my teaching process so that the students will understand
in this topic and also can applied it in their daily life.
(d) What was the role of the teacher in the above practical?
In this practical, they were student centered which means
that the teacher just act like a facilitator to help them
whenever they have any problems. The teacher also can
guide them while doing the experiment so that there will be
no problems and also can get the accurate result or answer.

Resources

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/1DKin/U1L5a.cfm
http://www.mindbites.com/lesson/4497-physics-free-falling-objects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-fall_%28disambiguation%29
Latih Tubi; Fizik; SPM; Chang See Leong
Longman; Pre- U Text STPM; Physics Volume 1; Cheong Foon Choong