Conical pendulum

A conical pendulum is like a toy that swings round and round in a circle. Imagine you have a ball on a string and you are holding the string at the top. Now if you move your hand round and round in a circle, the ball will swing round and round too!

Now imagine if the string was tied to something at the bottom too. The ball would still swing round and round, but it would also move up and down too because it is swinging on a tilted angle.

This swinging ball is called a conical pendulum. It works like a normal pendulum, but instead of swinging back and forth, it swings in a circle.

The length of the string and the speed at which it moves can change how fast or slow the ball swings, and how wide or narrow the circle it swings in is. Scientists like to study conical pendulums because they can use them to measure things like time, gravity and force. It's pretty cool!