Please find below information about ideas for several experiments that should be a little bit more open-ended and project-like than the experiments we have worked on to date. Each group will chose one project to work on and then will spend 3-4 lab sessions investigating a particular measurement or phenomena in detail.

Please review these projects and bring a ranked list of choices to the lab in Week 9, July 3, 2007. Projects will then be assigned during the lab.

As a prelab assignment, please submit a 1-page summary of what you plan to measure and how you plan to do this to the lab in Week 10, July 10, 2007. Project labs will start that day and you will have 4 lab sessions in which to work on them.

1. Photoelectric Effect
   Investigate the photoelectric effect and measure Planck's constant. The reference below suggests a method that uses a series of LEDs for light sources spanning a range of wavelengths.
   • W.P. Garver, "The Photoelectric effect using LEDs as light sources", Phys. Teach. 44, 272 (2006).

2. Speed of Light
   Measure the speed of light in air. We have a Pasco apparatus that is set up to do this measurement using Foucault's Method; the instruction manual for this apparatus is attached.
   • Instruction Manual for the PASCO OS-9261, 9262, 9263.

3. Air Resistance
   Investigate the effect of air resistance on free fall and/or projectile motion. We generally ignore the effect of air resistance on free fall and projectile motion in first year physics, but the effect is easily demonstrated. The following references suggest experiments designed to investigate this.
   • C. Brueningsen et al. "Modeling Air Drag", Phys. Teach. 32, 439 (1994).
   • V. Pagonis et al. "Effects of Air Resistance", Phys. Teach. 35, 364 (1997).