Horizontal Projectile Motion

1. Horizontal Projectile Motion By: Jalyn Robinson, Kait Cruz & Eric Martens

2. Horizontal projectile motion occurs when an object is launched from a perfectly horizontal direction.

3. Initially, all the motion is in the horizontal direction. Once it is in the air, then its motion can be broken up into components.

4. X-Direction Movement in the Y-direction is caused by the force due to gravity. If there was no gravity, the object fired would continue to move in the x-direction. Y-Direction

5. When a projectile is shot horizontally, the initial vertical velocity is always zero, because it hasn't started moving yet in the vertical direction.

6. However, as the projectile moves on, it begins to pick up vertical velocity.

7. Displacement in the x direction is the measure of the distance from the object to where it landed. Displacement

8. Displacement in the y direction measures the distance from the object to the ground. Displacement

9. Acceleration in the x direction will always be zero.

10. When an object is launched in the horizontal direction, the acceleration in the Y-direction will always be -9.81 m/s², because that is the force due to gravity on Earth.

11. Time is a constant in both the x and y directions, because it cannot be changed.

12. When measuring final velocity, measure the velocity before the projectile hits the ground, otherwise, final velocity would be zero, which is wrong.

13. Tips • When trying to solve problems involving horizontal projectile motion, use a table to sort out the x and y components.

14. Tips • Draw a picture to help you break up the components

15. Tips • When plugging into equations, label all the variables with the correct direction. Vf(x)=Vi(x) + at

16. Tips • When solving an equation, you can only use variables coming from the same direction! Vf(x)=Vi(y) + at