Accelerated Physics

Challenge Lab: Falling Toilet Paper Page 1 of 2

Name _____________________________________ Date __________________ Period ________

CHALLENGE LAB: FALLING TOILET PAPER
A roll of toilet paper will be freely dropped from a height of _______ meters.
Another roll of toilet paper will be dropped at the same time, but you will hold
on to the end of the roll.
Your goal:
Determine the height from which you will drop the roll you hold on to so that both rolls hit the ground at the
same exact instant.
Collect all of the data you need and organize it below. Also, show all of your calculations .
**On your moment of inertia reference sheet, you are given the moment of inertia for
a hoop and a disk. A toilet paper roll is somewhere in the middle of the two. The
moment of inertia for a thick-walled cylindrical tube of mass M with outer radius R
and inner radius r rotated about an axis that passes through the center of the tube is:
1 M(R 2 + r 2)
I=
2

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Challenge Lab: Falling Toilet Paper Page 2 of 2

Reflect
1. What simplifying assumptions did you make in order to solve the problem?

2. What kind of effect (consider the relative contribution of the effect) did these assumptions have on your
final result?