Does the Position of the Center of Mass Affect the g-Forces of an Object?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to determine if the G-forces will change when I change the position of the center of mass. Methods/Materials I constructed a centrifuge with an Erector set that had four positions to hold a Wii Nunchuk. The Wii Nunchuk has an accelerometer that senses gravitational forces. I connected the Wii Nunchuk to a microcontroller that interfaces with the computer. I put the centrifuge in motion and recorded data three times from each mark on the centrifuge. Results I observed that if the mass is closer to the center of gravity then the g-force is changed. But it is such a small change you wouldn't notice it. Conclusions/Discussion I thought that changing the position of the center of mass, that the g-forces on a separate object would change, which it did, but my data showed that it was such a small change you wouldn't notice. The results shocked me at first, until I thought about it and realized that it did make sense because the model is small. Even though the changes were not very noticeable, I think if the project were on a real to life scale that you might notice the changes. I could improve my experiment by making it a more accurate speed on each turn or changing the process of collecting data. If I do this experiment again I would change how I would place the sensor, and get a more accurate sensor.

Competition history

• CSEF 2012 Physics & Astronomy · Entry J1815

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Physics and Astronomy projects
• CSEF Physics and Astronomy projects
• Every CSEF 2012 project