Best Examples of Simple Harmonic Motion Experiment Examples for Physics Labs

Classic lab examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples

Most physics courses start with a few standard setups. They’re popular for a reason: they’re reliable, cheap, and map cleanly onto the textbook equations. Here are the best examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples that form the backbone of almost every kinematics and dynamics lab sequence.

Vertical mass–spring system (the workhorse example of SHM)

Hang a small mass from a vertical spring, pull it down slightly, and release. The mass oscillates up and down with a period that depends on the mass and the spring constant. This is the textbook example of simple harmonic motion in a controlled environment.

Key ideas you can test:

• Measure the period for different masses and show that \(T = 2\pi\sqrt{m/k}\).
• Use static measurements (force vs. extension) to determine the spring constant, then compare the value of \(k\) obtained dynamically from the period.
• Introduce damping by adding a cardboard disk or moving the setup into water and compare lightly damped vs. nearly undamped motion.

This is one of the most flexible examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples because it easily scales: middle schoolers can time 10 oscillations with a stopwatch, while university students can use motion sensors and fit sinusoidal curves to position–time data.

Horizontal mass–spring on a low-friction track

If you want to reduce the effect of gravity on the motion itself, move to a horizontal setup. A cart attached to a spring on an air track or low-friction rail is another classic example of simple harmonic motion.

Why it’s useful:

• Friction is smaller and easier to model as a small damping term.
• The equilibrium position is easier to define and track visually.
• You can explore energy more clearly: potential energy in the spring, kinetic energy of the cart, and how total mechanical energy changes with damping.

With a motion sensor or a modern app-based tracker, students can record position, velocity, and acceleration versus time and directly check that acceleration is proportional to displacement and opposite in direction, which is the defining feature of SHM.

Real examples of simple harmonic motion in pendulum experiments

Pendulums are probably the most recognizable examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples, even if they’re only approximately simple harmonic for small angles.

Simple pendulum: string and bob

Tie a small metal bob to a light string, fix the top, pull the bob aside a small angle (say 5°–10°), and release. For small angles, the motion is almost perfect SHM.

Concepts you can explore:

• Verify that the period \(T \approx 2\pi\sqrt{L/g}\) is independent of mass.
• Show that the approximation breaks down at large amplitudes by comparing periods at 10°, 30°, and 45°.
• Use the measured period to estimate \(g\) and compare with the local value reported by national standards labs, such as NIST in the U.S. (NIST.gov).

This is one of the simplest examples include in any lab manual, but you can make it far richer by adding photogates or a rotary motion sensor to get high‑precision timing.

Physical pendulum: rigid body oscillations

Instead of a point mass on a string, use a rigid object (like a meter stick with a pivot near one end, or a solid disk on a knife‑edge support). Displace it slightly and let it oscillate.

Here, the restoring torque is proportional to the angular displacement for small angles, so the motion is angular SHM. This example of simple harmonic motion experiment lets students:

• Connect rotational inertia (moment of inertia) to period.
• Compare theoretical and experimental periods using \(T = 2\pi\sqrt{I/(mgd)}\), where \(d\) is the distance from pivot to center of mass.
• See how shifting the pivot point changes the period.

For engineering‑oriented courses, physical pendulums are some of the best examples because they bridge straight into real devices like seismometers and clock escapements.

Modern sensor-based examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples

Physics teaching has changed a lot in the last decade. You no longer need expensive motion sensors; smartphones, low‑cost accelerometers, and open‑source tools now make it easy to collect high‑quality data. These modern setups are some of the most engaging examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples for 2024–2025.

Smartphone accelerometer on a mass–spring or pendulum

Most smartphones contain 3‑axis accelerometers. Mount a phone securely on a spring cart or tape it to a pendulum bob (safely!) and use a free physics app to record acceleration vs. time.

What students can see instantly:

• Sinusoidal acceleration data that matches the SHM model.
• Changes in amplitude and frequency as mass or length is adjusted.
• Damping over time as the peaks shrink.

This is a real example of how consumer technology can double as lab equipment. Many university teaching centers and organizations like the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT, aapt.org) now publish lab ideas that explicitly use phones as sensors.

Low-cost microcontroller setups (Arduino or similar)

An Arduino or similar microcontroller with an ultrasonic sensor or optical encoder can turn almost any oscillator into a data-rich example of simple harmonic motion experiment.

You might:

• Attach an ultrasonic sensor to track a vertical mass–spring system.
• Use an infrared sensor to track a glider on an air track attached to a spring.
• Log data directly to a laptop, then fit sine curves and extract amplitude, angular frequency, and phase.

These are some of the best examples to prepare students for modern lab work, because they combine coding, data acquisition, and physics modeling in one project.

Damped and driven oscillation: extended examples include real-world behavior

Real systems rarely oscillate forever. Air resistance, internal friction, and external forcing shape the motion. Turning a simple harmonic oscillator into a damped or driven one gives more advanced examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples that connect to engineering and geophysics.

Damped oscillations with a spring–mass system

Attach a small cardboard fin to your oscillating mass or immerse part of the spring–mass system in water. The oscillations decay over time.

Students can:

• Measure how the amplitude falls over successive peaks.
• Fit an exponential decay to the envelope and find the damping constant.
• Compare underdamped, critically damped (if you can approximate it with a dashpot), and overdamped behavior.

While technically this is no longer pure SHM, it’s a realistic extension and one of the most informative examples of oscillatory experiments you can run in a teaching lab.

Driven oscillator and resonance

If your lab has a mechanical driver (or even a DIY setup with a small motor and eccentric mass), you can drive a spring–mass system at different frequencies.

Students can:

• Sweep the driving frequency and record the steady‑state amplitude.
• Identify the resonance peak and compare it to the natural frequency found from free oscillations.
• See how damping changes the width and height of the resonance curve.

This experiment mimics real examples like building vibrations during earthquakes and the tuning of car suspensions. For context on how oscillations and resonance appear in engineering and Earth science, educators often reference resources from agencies like the U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov).

Less obvious but powerful real examples of simple harmonic motion

Once students see the basics, it’s useful to show that SHM is not just about springs and pendulums. A few more subtle examples include:

Torsion pendulum

A disk or bar suspended by a thin wire that twists back and forth behaves as a torsional oscillator. The restoring torque is proportional to the angular displacement, so the motion is angular SHM.

This example of simple harmonic motion experiment is great for:

• Measuring the torsion constant of the wire.
• Exploring how changing the attached mass changes the period.
• Introducing applications like torsion balances in precision measurements (for example, classic Cavendish‑style experiments).

Small-angle oscillations of molecules and atoms (conceptual extension)

You obviously won’t build a molecular oscillator in a school lab, but spectroscopy and molecular vibration models are real examples where the SHM approximation shows up in modern research.

In more advanced courses, instructors sometimes connect lab‑scale SHM with quantum harmonic oscillators, using materials from university physics departments such as MIT OpenCourseWare (ocw.mit.edu). Even if students don’t perform these experiments directly, it helps them see why their very simple mass–spring data connects to real physics and chemistry.

Designing the best examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples for your course

When you choose which examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples to run, think less about tradition and more about what you want students to learn and measure.

For introductory high school physics, strong candidates include:

• A simple pendulum with stopwatch timing to highlight period vs. length.
• A vertical mass–spring system with basic timing and a graph of period vs. mass.

For AP Physics or first‑year college courses, the best examples usually expand to:

• A horizontal mass–spring setup with motion sensor or smartphone tracking.
• A physical pendulum to connect rotation, torque, and SHM.
• A damped spring–mass system to introduce real‑world energy loss.

For more advanced or project‑based courses, real examples worth adding are:

• Arduino‑based tracking of a torsion pendulum.
• A driven oscillator to map out resonance curves.
• Smartphone accelerometer studies of SHM in everyday contexts (elevators, car suspensions over small bumps, or even a carefully controlled playground swing).

Across all these examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples, the pattern is the same: a restoring force (or torque) proportional to displacement, small enough amplitudes for the approximation to hold, and clean measurement of period and amplitude. Once students recognize that pattern, they start spotting SHM everywhere—from guitar strings and clock mechanisms to micro‑scale sensors in medical devices. For broader background on oscillations and their role in technology and medicine, instructors sometimes point students to educational articles from institutions like Harvard University (harvard.edu) and research summaries at the National Institutes of Health (nih.gov), which often discuss vibrations and resonance in imaging and diagnostic tools.

FAQ: common questions about examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples

What are the simplest examples of simple harmonic motion experiment examples for beginners?

The simplest setups are a vertical mass on a spring and a small‑angle simple pendulum. Both are inexpensive, easy to time with a stopwatch, and match the basic SHM equations very well when amplitudes are small.

Which example of simple harmonic motion is best for measuring the gravitational acceleration g?

A simple pendulum is usually the best example. By measuring the period for different lengths and fitting \(T^2\) versus \(L\), students can estimate \(g\) from the slope. Results can be compared with reference values from national metrology institutes such as NIST in the U.S.

How can I use smartphones in examples of SHM experiments?

You can mount a smartphone on a spring cart or pendulum and use an accelerometer app to record motion. This turns a standard lab into a data‑rich example of simple harmonic motion experiment, letting students see acceleration, velocity, and displacement in real time.

Are damped oscillations still considered examples of simple harmonic motion?

Strictly speaking, pure SHM assumes no damping. However, lightly damped oscillations follow the same sinusoidal pattern with a slowly shrinking amplitude, so they are often treated as realistic extensions of simple harmonic motion in lab courses.

What real examples outside the lab behave like simple harmonic oscillators?

Real examples include car suspensions over small bumps, building sway in light winds, small oscillations of a guitar string, and certain modes of vibration in medical imaging equipment. All can be modeled, at least approximately, as simple harmonic oscillators for small displacements.