You can drop things and hope you can collect information fast enough to describe what happened. One tool that is available for you today is the use of digital video. This is a powerful tool. Camcorders typically record frames 30 times a second. So the time between frames is 1/30 th second. That's cool. If we drop something to the floor from chest level may take something like a half second or so. (Okay -YOU work it out long hand for an exact value.) But anyway, if we have a picture of where the object is, it is easy to see what is happening. Here's how to proceed:

1. Select the icon from your desktop called VideoPoint and double click on it.

2. The Video Point screen will come up. It has some dumb  useless  information so click it away. When you do so you should get a menu that will let you OPEN MOVIE. Click on OPEN MOVIE. Your instructor will make sure you have the CD in your computer. Select d:// movies/dson001.mov    Again, your instructor will help. Now you can acquire data for an object in some kind of accelerated fall. Admittedly there is friction involved so it is not exactly free fall but it sure is scary if you are on the ride. There is quite a change of direction at the bottom. We are not studying circular motion right now.

3. Click on the point (You can see the falling chamber on the left side of the video.) The computer sets clicks of the cursor so you have x and y data points. You'll need to scale this to actual distances from the video.

4. Plot in EXCEL the displacement and velocity versus time. Yes, you only get the displacement as a function of time but remember every time frame is 1/30th second. Velocity is merely the change of position (take the current position less the previous value) to get velocity.

5. For the vertical fall, calculate the acceleration experienced. What is the velocity of the chamber just as it starts to turn and go horizontal? When it reaches horizontal speed, what is its velocity?

6. Alternatively you can make your own video of a dropping golf ball or something like that. Ask your instructor for help.