Re: 2-Dimensional Air Table

[Hugh Haskell <haskell@ODIE.NCSSM.EDU>]

> Hello,
>        I am looking to purchase 2-D air table.  Do any of you have a
> favorite or a warning before I plunk down the $$$?  Thanks, in advance.
>
> Tom McCarthy

We have used the Daedalon air tables for several years. They use an
overhead air source that feeds into the pucks via a long rubber tube. They
are reasonably easy to level, although they do have some trouble with drag
from the umbilical cords. But they have one huge advantage--the umbilicals
contains an electrical wire and the underside of the table is coated in a
conducting material so putting down a piece of newsprint and a special
piece of "carbon paper" between the pucks and the table surface allows the
data to be taken with a spark generator. It is fast, easy and repeatable.
We do two dimensional motion studies, momentum conservation experiments and
several others. The tables are reasonably sturdy. We have had two of them
for almost 15 years and two more for about 8 or 9 years. The tables come
with plain steel  pucks, magnetized pucks (great for elastic collisions),
velcro strips to make inelastic collisions, and weights to add to each puck
to give variable mass collisions. A spark generator and an air source is
included as is the initial packet of the paper.

They are not perfect, but the data-taking is so fast and reliable that the
other disadvantages pale into insignificance.

Hugh

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Hugh Haskell

<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

The box said "Requires Windows 95 or better." So I bought a Macintosh.
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