Conservation of energy is an important concept in mechanics. It can be demonstrated easily by calculating total energy of a body at different positions during its motion. Today I planned and worked on the set up of   a new and simple experiment to demonstrate this.

The experiment can be done in two ways

1. Using Ultrasocic sensor :  SRF 05 module transmits a burst of ultrasonic pulses. The ultrasonic pulses reflect off a target and return to the face of the sensor.  The sensor measures the time between the trigger rising edge and the echo rising edge. It uses this time and the speed of sound to calculate the distance to the object. To determine velocity, it uses consecutive position measurements to calculate the rate of change of position.
2. Using Photogates : A photogate monitors the motion of objects passing through its gate, counting events as the object breaks the infrared beam. If the size of the object is known, by measuring the time an object blocks the gate, you can determine the velocity.

I could do the experiment with two photogates using a small spherical ball rolling on an inclined plane.

Tomorrow I will get the wooden ramp for this purpose. Program to measure the time and to calculate Kinetic and Potential energy is ready.I will also try to do the same experiment using SRF module.