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The Physics Teacher -- October 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 7, pp. 432

Projectile Motion Gets the Hose

John Eric Goff and Chinthaka Liyanage

Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, va

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Students take a weekly quiz in our introductory physics course. During the week in which material focused on projectile motion, we not-so-subtly suggested what problem the students would see on the quiz. The quiz problem was an almost exact replica of a homework problem1 we worked through in the class preceding the quiz. The goal of the problem is to find the launch speed if the final horizontal and vertical positions and launch angle are given. Figure 1 shows a schematic of the trajectory.

© 2011 American Association of Physics Teachers

KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

drops, physics education, projectiles, student experiments, two-phase flow

PACS

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0031-921X (print)  

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Association of Physics Teachers

ARTICLE DATA

Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3639153

  1. R. Wolfson, Essential University Physics, 1st ed. (Pearson/Addison-Wesley, San Francisco, CA, 2007), Chap. 3, prob. 73, p. 48.
  2. G. W. Ficken, Jr., “Home experiment using a garden hose,” Phys. Teach. 25, 218 (April 1987)PHTEAH000025000004000218000001.
  3. N. R. Greene, “Tossing a garden hose,” Phys. Teach. 37, 46–47 (Jan. 1999)PHTEAH000037000001000046000001.
  4. P. Lemaire and C. Waiveris, “Water in a coiled hose,” Phys. Teach. 43, 239–242 (April 2005)PHTEAH000043000004000239000001.
  5. R. Humbert, “Water nozzles,” Phys. Teach. 43, 604–607 (Dec. 2005)PHTEAH000043000009000604000001.
  6. R. J. Froehlich, “Water drop pulser,” Phys. Teach. 45, 183–184 (March 2007)PHTEAH000045000003000183000001.
  7. A. E. G. Falcão Jr., R. A. Gomes, J. M. Pereira, L. F. S. Coelho, and A. C. F. Santos, “Cellular phones helping to get a clearer picture of kinematics,” Phys. Teach. 47, 167–168 (March 2009)PHTEAH000047000003000167000001.
  8. See, for example, Chap. 15, p. 249 in Ref. 1.

Figures (click on thumbnails to view enlargements)

FIG.1
Parabolic trajectory for a standard introductory projectile motion problem. For the problem of interest here, the launch location (origin) and landing point (xf , yf) are given, as well as the angle θ0 that the launch velocity math0 makes with the horizontal. The goal is to find the launch speed v0.

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FIG.2
Our water hose trajectory. We placed white boards behind the water stream so that the stream is more visible. The water leaves the tube 1.30 m above the ground with an initial velocity that is 35° above the horizontal. The water lands 3.66 m horizontally from the base of the support rod.

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FIG.3
The water leaves the glass tube at a launch angle of 35° to the horizontal.

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