Physics Education

FRONTLINE You may also like

- A Survey for New Stars and Brown Dwarfs
An Arduino experiment to determine the in the Ophiuchus Star-forming Complex
T. L. Esplin and K. L. Luhman
gravitational acceleration using a light interruption - The Stellar Membership of the Taurus
Star-forming Region
apparatus with PLX − DAQ data acquisition tool K. L. Luhman

- Gaia EDR3 Confirms a Red Dwarf

To cite this article: Ahmed Madey 2024 Phys. Educ. 59 043005 Companion of the nearby F1 Star HD
105452 and Reveals a New Brown Dwarf
Companion of the M4.5 Dwarf SCR J1214-
2345
Ralf-Dieter Scholz

View the article online for updates and enhancements.

This content was downloaded from IP address [Link] on 15/10/2024 at 14:45

 FRONTLINE
Phys. Educ. 59 (2024) 043005 (4pp) [Link]/ped

An Arduino experiment
to determine the
gravitational acceleration
using a light interruption
apparatus with
PLX − DAQ data
acquisition tool
Ahmed Madey
Department of Chemistry and Physics, Faculty of Education, Al-Azhar University,
Cairo, Egypt

E-mail: ahmedelsied199000@[Link]

Abstract
In this paper the author is presenting a novel experiment for measuring the
gravitational acceleration using simple and cost effective apparatus with a
regular pendulum, composed of an Arduino Uno and a light interruption
circuit with an light dependent resistor (LDR) and an light emitting diode
(LED), the data was recorded using PLX − DAQ data acquisition tool for
further analysis, the experiment would be useful for introductory physics
courses on the subject.

Keywords: gravitational acceleration, light interruption circuit, Arduino experiment,

simple pendulum

1. Introduction door for large number of possible experiments and

Arduino platform has proved its importance in demonstrations.
the enhancement of the learning process in dif- The simple pendulum is one of the first
ferent ways, basically by combining it with some devices that students encounter throughout
simple components one can demonstrate physical their learning process about simple harmonic
concepts more effectively, for some examples of motion and oscillation in general, the peri-
such application refer to [1, 2], also combining the odic time of the simple in its first approx-
measurement ability of Arduino with a live data imation form is given by the following
acquisition tool like the PLX − DAQ [3] opens the formula [4]

1 © 2024 IOP Publishing Ltd

A Madey
√
L
T = 2π , (1)
g

where L is the length of the pendulum string, and

g is the gravitational acceleration.
Hence the simple pendulum can be used to
determine g by measuring the periodic time and
substituting the value of L and T in the following
equation

4Lπ 2
g= .
T2
However, measuring T can be relatively hard and Figure 1. The light interruption circuit used for detec-
inaccurate process using the standard methods. tion of the pendulum motion.
The proposed apparatus of this paper uses the time
between two successive interruptions of a simple The output voltage will suffer from a periodic
light interruption circuit, which would increase interruption which reflects the periodic motion
the accuracy in measuring T significantly in com- of the simple pendulum, by careful examination
parison with standard methods. The time between of the apparatus it is clear that the amount of
interrupts in this apparatus is exactly half the value time between these interrupts which is denoted by
of the periodic time ∆t is half the periodic time of the pendulum T.
The proposed circuit of the apparatus is shown in
T = 2∆t. figure 1. The author should also point out that the
response time of the LDR is not very fast which
Substituting back in equation (1) we arrive at would affect the accuracy of the results at high
√ T values. For improving the accuracy of the res-
L ults, usage of a photodiode e.g. the BPW-34 is
2∆t = 2π . (2)
g advised.

With simple rearrangement, the following formula

can be obtained for calculating g as a function of 3. The coding process
the time between interrupts ∆ t The codding process is straight forward as we
just have to measure the analogue value from the
L L voltage divider circuit and record the correspond-
g = ( )2 = ( ) . (3)
∆t t2 −t1 2 ing time of each measurement process, the code is
π π
shown in figure 2.
The data was recorded live using a data
2. The interruption circuit acquisition tool called PLX − DAQ which enables
The circuit is composed of a simple voltage the user to record the serial data from the Arduino
divider formed by a combination of an LDR and a in an Excel spread sheet, for more informa-
100 kΩ resistor connected in series, the LDR will tion about how to use the PLX − DAQ refer
change its resistance once the amount of incident to [5].
light is changed which in this case results from the Actually measuring g with the Arduino is not
passage of the simple pendulum mass in front of new, it has been done before in the literature;
the LDR, and since the voltage divider circuit out- However, most of the previous methods rely on
puts a specific voltage according to the relation the free-fall equation
Vcc 1 2d
V (R1 , R2 ) =
(R1 + R2 )
R2 . (4) d = gt2 −→ g = 2 .
2 t

July 2024 2 P hy s . E d u c . 5 9 ( 2 0 2 4 ) 0 4 3 0 0 5
 An Arduino experiment to determine the gravitational acceleration

Figure 2. The Arduino code.

Or the usage of an optical switch combined with The pendulum apparatus has a thread of length
a data logger system, this require measuring the L = 10.39 cm, now with direct substitution of L
time of a free falling object using the Arduino or and ∆t in equation (3) we arrive at
the interruption time for the optical switch, which
L 0.1039 −2
is relatively more complicated in the circuitry and g = [ ]2 = [ ] = 10.20 m s .
∆t 0.317 2
in the coding process. hence our apparatus despite π π
being marginally less accurate, it provides a much
This value has a relative error percentage of
simpler alternative.
|gm − go | |10.20 − 9.817|
r% = × 100 =
4. Results and discussion go 9.817
× 100 = 3.90%
The analogue data from the interruption circuit
was recorded using PLX-DAQ tool directly into where gm denotes the measured value of
excel. The start of the record time begins at the g, and go is the average value of g near
point of crossing for the Solid sphere in front of earth surface. A scatter line plot was con-
the LDR, the transit time (time taken to pass the structed between the analogue read of the
diameter of the LDR’s disk is very small in com- Arduino and its corresponding time as shown in
parison with ∆t and was neglected from the calcu- figure 3.
lations), part of the data that indicates the variation The measurement of the pendulum string
is shown in table 1. should be done with considerable precision oth-
The periodic variation of the analogue value erwise the error in measuring g will increase
is clear, thus by measuring the time between two substantially, the author used an averaged value
successive peaks tn+1 − tn we can directly meas- of multiple Vernier caliper measurements for
ure the gravitational acceleration g according to determining the length of the string.
equation (3). It is advised to choose two points at the first
Using the values given in table 2, an average several peaks, because as time passes the inter-
estimate of ∆t is found to be vals ∆t is found to shift slightly due to air friction
∑N ∑10 which would affect the accuracy of the results.
n= i t i n=i ti The authors also encourage the study of the
∆t = = = 0.317 s
N 10 effect of air drag on a simple pendulum motion

July 2024 3 P hy s . E d u c . 5 9 ( 2 0 2 4 ) 0 4 3 0 0 5
A Madey
Table 1. The analogue data recorded using the PLX-DAQ tool.

Time (s) 43.73 43.77 43.80 43.83 43.86 43.90 43.93 43.97 44.00 44.03 44.06

Analogue data 46 0 45 47 47 46 46 47 47 48 0

Table 2. The Interruption time for different points.

Time point t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 t6 t7 t8 t9 t10 t11

s 44.43 44.70 45.06 45.34 45.70 46.00 46.34 46.63 46.97 47.27 47.60

Interruption time — t2 − t1 t3 − t2 t4 − t3 t5 − t4 t6 − t5 t7 − t6 t8 − t7 t9 − t8 t10 − t9 t11 − t10

dt — 0.27 0.36 0.28 0.36 0.30 0.34 0.29 0.34 0.30 0.33

Figure 3. The obtained data for the interruption intervals.

using a relatively large data points, where it is pre- Received 6 January 2024, in final form 22 March 2024
Accepted for publication 26 April 2024
dicted to show an exponential trend line in the data [Link]
due the damping process.

References
[1] Pereira N S A 2016 Measuring the RC time
5. Conclusion constant with Arduino Phys. Educ.
The gravitational acceleration was measured 51 065007
using a simple and cost effective light inter- [2] Kubínová S and Šlégr J 2015 Physics
ruption circuit with an accuracy of about 96%, demonstrations with the Arduino board Phys.
Educ. 50 472
this method can also be used for studying [3] PLX-DAQ Parallax Inc. The download link for
periodic motion of other simple objects more PLX-DAQ Software (available at: www.
accurately. [Link]/downloads/plx-daq)
[4] Serway R A and Jewett J W 2018 Physics for
Scientists and Engineers (Cengage
learning)
Data availability statement [5] CrtSuznik 2015 Instructables: Sending Data
From Arduino to Excel (and Plotting It)
All data that support the findings of this (available at: [Link]/id/
study are included within the article (and any Sending-data-from-Arduino-to-Excel-and-
supplementary files). plotting-it/)

July 2024 4 P hy s . E d u c . 5 9 ( 2 0 2 4 ) 0 4 3 0 0 5