Lab
See the idea. Put it to the test.
956 practicals from Kindergarten to Year 12, in 9 subjects. A practical gives the idea, what you need, the steps, what you should see and a safety card. A teacher-led practical gives the idea and its hazards; its method is for tutors on the learning platform.
Review
Reviewed before publication (owner’s confirmation, 24 September 2026). That covers every practical here, and a practical’s page lists the sources its author read.
A safety card on every page
The risk, who supervises and the hazards. The 38 teacher-led practicals show their idea and hazards here; their materials, steps and sources, and any result, control or note that states a number or an amount, are for tutors and administrators on the learning platform.
School laboratory, not for home
207 practicals are medium or high risk. Each says so on its page: In a school laboratory, with a teacher supervising, under the school's risk assessment. Not for home.
Curriculum references
Each practical lists the NSW syllabus outcomes and Australian Curriculum v9 codes it supports. They are references, not a verified or complete curriculum alignment.
Find a practical
17 practicals
Physics 11–12 · Physics · Forces and motion
Average and instantaneous velocity from a ticker-timer tape (syllabus practical)
A dot pattern made at a known rate turns a moving trolley into a position-time record from which average and instantaneous velocity are read as gradients.
Practical, model not builtLow riskAverage power in mechanical processes: stair climb and pulley lift (syllabus practical)
Power is the rate of doing work, so raising a known weight through a measured height in a measured time gives the average power directly.
PracticalLow riskCoefficient of kinetic friction with a spring balance
The kinetic friction force between two surfaces grows in proportion to the normal force, and the constant of proportionality is a property of the pair of surfaces.
PracticalLow riskDisplacement, distance and the sign of velocity: a tumbling toy car and a motion sensor (syllabus practical)
Velocity carries a direction, so a position-time graph slopes up while an object moves away from the origin and down while it returns, and a round trip has zero displacement but a non-zero distance.
PracticalLow riskImpulse from a force-time graph: cart into a spring bumper and bouncing ball
The area under a force-time graph equals the change in momentum, so a longer collision time means a smaller peak force for the same impulse.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMeasuring the acceleration due to gravity in free fall (syllabus practical)
An object released from rest falls with a constant acceleration that a timed drop over a measured height reveals as g.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMomentum in one- and two-dimensional collisions (syllabus practical)
In a closed system the total momentum before a collision equals the total after, whether or not kinetic energy is conserved.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMotion of a cart on an inclined plane (syllabus practical)
On a slope the weight component along the incline, less friction, sets a constant acceleration that can be predicted from the angle and checked by measurement.
Practical, model not builtLow riskNewton's second law: constant net force on a cart with hanging masses
A fixed hanging mass applies a constant net force to a cart-and-mass system, and the measured acceleration is proportional to that force and inversely proportional to the total mass.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRelative motion: two toy cars on video, a boat crossing a river and an aeroplane in a crosswind
Velocities add as vectors, so the motion of an object relative to the ground is the vector sum of its velocity relative to the medium and the medium's velocity.
Practical, model not builtLow riskResonance in mechanical systems: driven pendulums and resonant rings (syllabus practical)
A system driven near its natural frequency absorbs energy each cycle and builds a large amplitude, while driving well above or below that frequency produces little response.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRolling resistance of a toy car from its stopping distance
Work done against rolling resistance removes the car's kinetic energy over its stopping distance, so speed and distance give the resistive force.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCentripetal acceleration on a turntable measured with a phone accelerometer
At a fixed rotation rate the centripetal acceleration grows in proportion to the radius and points towards the axis.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCentripetal force against mass, speed and radius with a whirling rubber stopper (syllabus practical)
An object moving in a circle needs a net force towards the centre equal to m v squared over r, which a hanging weight supplies through a string.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskForces in circular motion: conical pendulum and a car on a banked bend
On a banked surface or a slanted string, the horizontal component of the normal force or tension supplies the centripetal force, which fixes the speed for a given angle.
Practical, model not builtLow riskProjectile motion: primary data from a ball leaving a bench and a spring launcher (syllabus practical)
A projectile's horizontal velocity stays constant while its vertical velocity changes at g, so range and time of flight follow from the launch conditions.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTorque and rotational equilibrium with a metre rule on a pivot
A force turns an object about a pivot with a torque equal to force times perpendicular distance, and a body stays balanced when the torques cancel.
Practical, model not builtLow risk
For tutors and administrators
The materials and steps of every teacher-led practical are on the learning platform, with the safety card first. Sign in with a tutor or administrator account to read them.