|Physics 1D Project

Paper Toss
Sifat Ullah Khan, Tee Yong Kiat, Foo Xi Yuan, Maria Grazia Lee

Abstract
Paper Toss is a popular game for smartphones and tablets. In the game, the player has to throw a
crumpled paper ball into a dustbin located a few meters away. To make things more challenging,
sometimes there will be a fan blowing behind the ball so that the player is forced to throw the ball at
a different horizontal angle to compensate for the crosswind.

For our groups project, we aim to recreate the game in real life by attempting to land the paper crush
into the dustbin with the help of a catapult, overcoming the effect of angular force due to the fan on
the paper ball in the horizontal plane.

Project Design
Preliminary Calculations
For the catapult, we assumed that all the energy from the rubber band and the projectiles initial
gravitational potential energy were converted to its kinetic energy, i.e

= 0.


Initial energy of the system =
( )

Final energy =

Where ( )= height of projectile from the table when the rubber band is stretched, = elastic spring
constant of the rubber band, = height of projectile from the table at the moment it leaves the catapult and

= initial speed of the projectile.

( ) can be expressed in terms of and H:
( )

From experimental results (Appendix 1), we found out that s is related to by the equation:


Therefore, our energy equation can be expressed thus:

( )

The expression for k can be derived:

( )

The force Ffan that the projectile experiences from the fan varies linearly with L, the distance between
the catapult and the dustbin, according to the equation below:

()

Where E is a constant we determined from experiments.

We assumed that

acts only on the horizontal plane (

) and g affects only

direction (but not and

). We derived

from Newtons second law of motion (F = ma) and equation

(a). (For the full workings please refer to Appendix 2.)

)
Experiment 1
The aim of our first experiment was to find out the initial velocity, v0 of our projectile. For our setup,
we made a scale of 10cm intervals and placed it behind our catapult. We placed the fan directly
behind our catapult and tilted the catapult at an angle with respect to the horizontal range. We
videoed the launches with a video camera and slowed the footage down to 10% of the original speed
to calculate the initial velocity. We stretched the rubber band with varying x and obtained the
corresponding v0 values.

We plotted values of initial speed and calculated k values against x and determined their
relationships.

x (m) Initial speed (m/s) x (m) Initial speed (m/s) x (m) Initial speed (m/s) x (m) Initial speed (m/s)
0.034 3.00 0.035 2.77 0.036 2.50 0.038 4.00
0.034 3.00 0.035 3.00 0.037 3.75 0.038 4.00
0.034 2.50 0.036 3.50 0.037 3.30 0.038 3.30
0.035 2.50 0.036 2.50 0.037 3.75



Experiment 2
To determine

from the fan, we released a ping-pong ball along a 1.21m track at different
starting distances away from the fan. Then, we estimated the acceleration of the ping-pong ball by
analysing slow-motion videos of the experiment. Using the equation , we found the force
acting on the ball.

Mass of ping-pong ball = 2.66g
Distance (m) Acceleration F=ma Distance (m) Acceleration F=ma Distance (m) Acceleration F=ma
0 1.48 0.00394 0.2 1.43 0.00380 0.4 1.35 0.00359
0 1.54 0.00411 0.2 1.45 0.00387 0.5 1.38 0.00366
0 1.58 0.00419 0.3 1.25 0.00333 0.5 1.17 0.00310
0.1 1.45 0.00387 0.3 1.30 0.00347 0.5 1.40 0.00373
0.1 1.45 0.00387 0.3 1.35 0.00359 0.6 1.02 0.00270
0.1 1.71 0.00456 0.4 1.17 0.00310 0.6 1.30 0.00347
0.2 1.45 0.00387 0.4 1.25 0.00333 0.6 1.15 0.00305
Using the collected data, we plotted a graph to show the linear relationship between the starting
distance from the fan and the force acted on the ball.


Results and analysis
Experiment 1
For each x value used, the initial velocity, 0 was not consistent. This could be due to random errors
which could be minimized by taking an average reading. Hence, the average initial velocity, V0,avg was
calculated and a graph of x against 0,avg was plotted. An approximately linear graph was yielded as
shown above.
Using the equation

( )

, the spring constant, k was calculated and a

graph of x against k was plotted. A best fit line was drawn and a straight horizontal line was obtained.
The inconsistent values of k around the best fit line, with a range of deviation of approximately 17%,
was a result of the varying values of initial velocity, V0. This implies that the rubber band does not
follow an ideal spring case as its spring constant k, is dependent on the initial velocity, V0. Hence, the
elastic potential energy, E provided from the rubber band is not exactly E = kx
2
However, we
assumed that the rubber band follows an ideal spring case in the experiments and used an average k
value for the calculations.
Experiment 2
In order to derive the maximum force, Fmax and E constants for the equation , a
second experiment was designed. The group used a fan and ping-pong ball to calculate the force of
the fan applied to the ball. A straight track was used to guide the path of the ball as it would
otherwise deviate from a straight line.
Using a video camera, the process of the ping-pong ball moving from the start to the end of the track
with the fan blowing directly at it was recorded. The time taken for the ping-pong ball to course the
entire track was calculated by slowing down the video frames. By calculating the time taken for the
ball to travel a fixed distance of the track, the acceleration of the ball could be calculated. The force
applied to the ball by the fan could then be calculated with the equation F=ma.
However, the group faced difficulties determining the time interval as it was hard to exactly pinpoint
the time of release of the ping-pong ball from the students grasp in the video. Therefore, the
experiment was conducted and recorded several times to achieve a reliable average result of the time
interval.
Conclusion


Appendix 1: Graph of s against

Appendix 2: Derivation of

from F=ma
and

()

()

()

()

()

()
()

()
() ()
()
()

()
()
()

()
()
()
() ()
(()

)
()

)
()
() ()

() (()

)
()() ()

)
()

(()

) ()
() ()

()

)

Appendix 3: List of constants
mass 0.0002 kg
g 9.81 m/s
2

H 0.21 m
x0 0.14 m
c 0.08 m
x 0.98 m
y 0.27 m
z 0.50 m
0.471 rad
theta 1.047 rad
Fmax 0.0041 N
E 0.0017

L 0.2 m
t 0.228 s