Ticker Tape Timer

Ticker tape timer is a device which punches dots on a tape at specific time interval. The tape can be attached to a moving object. With information of the frequency of the ticker timer and the spacing of the dots, we are able to analyse the motion of the moving object.

View the following videos to understand more about the ticker tape timer and also some typical questions on ticker tape timer.

Explanation of Ticker Tape Timer

Questions on ticker tape timer

Bowling ball and feather in a vacuum room – which drops faster?

In a vacuum room, where is no air resistance, the bowling ball will have the same acceleration as the feather, which is 10 m/s2 on earth. Hence both will have the same speed at any time and reach the floor at the same time.

In vacuum, the speed-time graph for both objects will be the same, i.e. straight line, start from origin and with a constant gradient (constant acceleration) of 10 ms-2 due to free-fall acceleration due to gravity.

Fiery Re-entry into Earth’s Atmosphere

First astronauts launched by SpaceX returned home safely on 3 Aug 2020.