Smartphone as monitor of the gravitational acceleration: A classroom demonstration and student experiment

Abstract

As the development of technology, smartphones today come with various sensors to mediate a nicer customer use. This paves the way for new perspectives on using smartphones as the laboratory tools. Accordingly, this paper presents how smartphone determining of the magnitude of gravitational acceleration (g) may be made, describes a classroom demonstration, cites a reported experiment designed to obtain the necessary data, and suggests a student experiment to calculate the magnitude of g. The depth of the mathematical analysis of the data can easily be adjusted to the level of the class such as arithmetic mean, slope of graph plotted by hand, and slope of graph plotted by excel. After conducting the experiment with 33 students, major in program of general science, faculty of education, Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University (BSRU), the students report the magnitude of gravitational acceleration nearly the theoretical value (g = 9.78 m/s2 at Bangkok; provided by the National Institute of Metrology (Thailand)) with a percentage difference less than 2%. We highlight the advantage of this experiment with the use of low-cost means and everyday devices in the classroom as a way of gathering empirical data about moving objects.

The Sound of G: A Method to Calculate The Acceleration Due to Gravity Using Acoustic Stopwatch

“…This tool requires a user to input the latitude and elevation of the experiment's location. The experiment's value of g is similar to the data found by Kittiravechote and Sujarittham (2020) whom recorded g at (9.760  0.23) ms -2 . The method used by Kittiravechote and Sujarittham (2020) is a bit different.…”

“…It suggests that there is minimal discrepancy between the measured value and the true value (Byju's, 2023). This value is lower compared to the percent error found by Kittiravechote & Sujarittham (2020) and lower from the study of Anni (2021). The h vs t was also plotted to verify the relationship.…”

Smartphones as Smart Tools for Science and Engineering Laboratory: A Review

“…Different motions ranging from free-falling to gliding on an air track and rolling on an inclined plane could be monitored by smartphone accelerometers. The gravitational acceleration can be deduced to compare the accuracy of each free-fall experiment [15][16]. Oprea & Miron analyzed linear motions using either 'Smart Measure' or 'Accelerometer Monitor' applications with an accelerometer [17].…”

Comparative experiment using free fall and projectile motions in determining the acceleration due to gravitational force

“…in physics experiment activities [1] and foster interest and curiosity [2]. Henceforth, many have used smartphone sensors to conduct experiments like determining acceleration due to gravitational force [3][4][5]. Various methods can be implemented to determine the acceleration value due to gravitational force g for both simple free fall and projectile motions [6][7][8]; however, few investigations have compared g calculations across the two motion conditions.…”