Physics Demo Number: 166

Approximate Run Time:10 min

New Shoot The Monkey Setup

Demo Description

 Use a precision Mini-Launcher gun ( which consists of a spring-powered , muzzle-loading tube for shooting a 16mm steel ball).

The gun is bore-sighted dead-on on a hanging target (aka the monkey).

When the ball leaves the end of the launching tube, both the ball and the target begin free fall in the vertical direction simultaneously.

The monkey will be hit by the ball, if the muzzle speed of the ball is sufficient to get it to the vertical line of fall of the monkey before either one  hits the floor.

Scientific Principles

• One has independence of the vertical and horizontal components of motion for ballistic firings in a uniform gravitational field.

Equipment

• A target , which consists of  a hollow aluminum tube with a cartoon of a monkey on the outside wall.

• Gun and Gun -Holding Tower

• The Gun-Holding tower is attached to a shop-made  fixture F1.  F1 has a flat  plate on its' bottom  for securing F1  to the demonstration cart with a  C-Clamp.

• The Gun-Holding tower is attached to F1 with two wing nuts that allow the tower to be rotated left-right with respect to F1( for fine tuning left-right alignment of the sight picture).

•  A Laser Sight Accessory ( lives attached to the bottom of  the gun).

• The gun has its' own dedicated photo gate detector attached to the end of the tube.

• Target Holder/Release Mechanism, which is mounted on a fixture F2 .

• Shoot- The- Target Control Box

Equipment Location

• Kit on [F-4-2] contains most of the loose parts.

• The majority  of the parts live attached to the two  fixtures, F1 and F2.
• F1 and F2 are in [F-4-2]

• All parts not in the kit come from the common hardware area [G-1] and [G-2]

1

2

Instructions

The first photo shows F2 on the left side of the photo.  The picture was rotated left 90 degrees to improve clarity.

The gun and its associated black tower mount  are seen on F1 in the second photo.

The single telephone type wire runs from the Shoot-the-target control box,CB,  to the target holder,which can be called DB or drop box.
The power  to DB is routed from a dedicated transformer (seen on the right in the second photo), through CB.

There is a arm/disarm switch on CB which allows DB to receive power from the transformer or not when the exiting ball breaks the photogate IR beam.

A second  identical transformer is used to power the laser sight directly.

The next two pictures give a closer look at the vastly improved target, made by the Science Machine Shop: an aluminum-pipe ringing-monkey.

Details of the new monkey are in the next photo.

The central wafer is of course steel, so that the target holder magnet will support it.

Writeup created by David A. Burba

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