Tutorials (Inclined Plane)

Video Tutorial for the analysis of the motion with Tracker (in Italian).

Short video showing how to evaluate uncertainties through differentiation (in Italian).

Frequently Asked Questions.

• What precautions should I take to minimise relative errors? 1. Your inclined plane should be long enough (about one meter long or even more) so that you can collect a large number of video frames and, hence, of experimental points. 2. The slope should not be too high: high slopes give high acceleration, as a consequence you will have low time duration of the motion and few experimental points. Furthermore the body will reach high speeds and it will appear as a fuzzy image in each video frame. 3. Make the inclined plane occupy a high percentage of the field of view of your video shoot. This will reduce the relative importance of the errors you make when defining the position of the points to the ends of the calibration stick.
• (TracKer) What do I do if , clicking on ‘View’ >> ‘Data Tool (Analyse)’, experimental data do not appear in the numerical data columns and in the plot? Go in the main Tracker window, put the mouse cursor in the region in which you see the columns with numerical data (on the right, below the the plot x(t) ), right-click and a drop down menu will appear, select the option “analyse data”.
• (Tracker) What if the x(t) plot you get from the tracking is not centred on x = 0? Make sure that the origin of the x axis (along the inclined plane) is well positioned at the centre of mass of the body when it is in its equilibrium starting position.
• (Tracker) What if the x(t) plot you get from the tracking is not tangent to time axis at t = 0? This means that the body is not at rest at the beginning of the part of the video you are considering. Make sure you have chosen the correct starting frame.