I want to build an arduino project to record the impact of a dropped object. This will be for a NASA volunteer project to demonstrate the difficulties and solutions to creating a ststem to minimize impact damage. Similar to the egg drop activity.
I am curious to see if anyone has created a build that would fit this need saving me time in developing it myself. Even something similar would help. Students will create mechanisms to acheive the lightest landing from a height in competition with other students.
Thank you in advance for any input and thoughts.
In general, a small microcontroller plus an accelerometer. Maybe the Seeeduino Xiao or Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense. You'll need a small battery too.
If it's not embedded, you could measure the force applied when hitting a target which presents its own set of challenges.
Do you want embedded, or external ground measurement?
Using a nano. And, yes, a battery, of course. It will be imbeded in the drop object. I'll figure it out if nobody has done something like this. Thanks.
Please keep to answering the OP's question, otherwise maybe don't reply.
I thank you.
1 Like
In order for anyone to offer useful advice, you need to provide estimated values for expected forces, masses of dropped objects, final velocity (or distance to fall), etc.
Crash impact tests using MEMS accelerometers are standard.
It will be imbeded in the drop object.
Why? Much easier to build into the target.
Depends on the drop height I imagine. If dropped from 100+ feet (30m) then wind currents will be difficult to contend with.
@AstroJ You'll want an accelerometer that measures G force. You'll monitor the Force on all axis until the ground collision and measure the peak values. It will likely be on multiple vectors and you'll have to compute total force based on all of the vectors. G force times mass gives weight which I believe is the instantaneous pounds of force at the point of impact.
Thanks. I guess i need to figure out the programming first, then adjust it. It's going to take some experimenting. I'd better not schedule the event too soon. 
Also, building to the target adds the difficulty of hitting the target.
All accelerometers measure acceleration, not force.
Force and acceleration are physically different quantities, with different units.
What do you think gravity is measured as? It's distance over time squared. The 'force' of gravity is measuring acceleration. Is it the exact proper term, no. Does it really matter. Also no. It's just a bad but common nomenclature. And you skipped over the part where I said to multiple the G's by the mass to get the force.
How about you show us how to calculate the proper values instead of just saying I'm wrong.
G's are acceleration measured in units of 9.8 m/s^2. Hope that helps!
Yeah, and I said that it's It's distance over time squared. So thanks for confirming what I already said.
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.