Deceleration of a Pellet through a Water Balloon

Tatiana Myers and Eric Freeman

January 3, 2005 - February 8, 2005

Our goal is to measure the deceleration of a pellet fired through a water balloon. We used a sound trigger regulated by a computer program that set off four flashes. The flashes showed the pellet at different times so we could measure the velocity of the pellet before and after leaving the balloons. The computer program gave us greater control over the delay of the flashes, so we could change the times that we saw the pellets and make it the way that we needed to best collect the data. Due to time restrictions we were unable to get a sufficient amount of data for analysis. With the data that we do have we were able to find that the water balloon caused the pellet to slow down 25.6 m/s.

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