College / Physics

Chaos

The chaotic behavior of driven nonlinear pendulum is explored by graphing its motion in phase space and by making a Poincare plot. These plots are compared...

College / Physics

Centripetal Force on a Pendulum

The purpose of this activity is to experimentally measure the centripetal force acting on a pendulum as a function of angular position. The experimentally...

College / Physics

Centripetal Force

In this activity, students will use a Force Sensor and Photogate to discover the relationship of centripetal force, mass, (tangential) speed and radius...

College / Physics

Capacitance

The purpose of this experiment is to investigate how the capacitance of a parallel-plate capacitor varies when the plate separation is changed and to qualitatively...

College / Physics

Brewster's Angle

In this experiment, light is partially polarized when reflected off a nonconducting surface and Brewster's angle is measured. Light from a diode laser...

College / Physics

Blackbody Radiation

The spectrum of an incandescent light bulb is scanned by hand using a prism spectrophotometer that measures relative light intensity as a function of angle....

College / Engineering

Basic Bridges

Learn about bridges through exploration. Discover how the tension or compression in beams varies in different bridge designs.

College / Physics

Ballistic Pendulum

A ballistic pendulum is used to determine the muzzle velocity of a ball shot out of a Projectile Launcher. The laws of conservation of momentum and conservation...

College / Physics

Newton’s Second Law – Atwood’s Machine

The purpose of this activity is to study the relationship between net force, mass, and acceleration...

College / Physics

Atomic Spectra

The atomic spectra of hydrogen, helium, and mercury are scanned by hand using a grating spectrophotometer that measures relative light intensity as a function...

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