A 3D-Printed Ballistic Pendulum Retrofit for the Rotary Motion Sensor
This page contains supplementary material for the paper “A 3D-Printed Ballistic Pendulum Retrofit for the Rotary Motion Sensor”, written by Zachary Hannan and Michael Sullivan for The Physics Teacher in 2025. I will update this page with a link to the article when it is published this spring.
- Derivations of Equations 1-7 (.pdf)
- Research Notes (.pdf)
- Data Analysis Excel Files (.zip)
- 3D Print Instructions (.zip)
- 3D Print Files – .stl and .step (.zip)
- Video 1: projectile shot to measure muzzle velocity (.mov)
- Video 2: ballistic pendulum shot (.mov)
- Video 3: ballistic pendulum as a rotational Atwood machine (.mov)
I’m also going to upload several of the derivations of equations as videos on my YouTube channel @ZaksLab in the coming months:
- Calculating muzzle speed from a tilted projectile launch [TBA]
- Calculating muzzle speed from a horizontal projectile launch [TBA]
- Solving the ballistic pendulum using angular momentum [TBA]
- Finding moment of inertia from the period of oscillation for a physical pendulum [TBA]
- Finding moment of inertia using a rotational Atwood machine [TBA]