Find out and investigate the factors that effect how high a ball will bounce.

Bouncing Balls

Aim: My aim is to find out and investigate the factors that effect how high a ball will bounce.

Method: The reason a ball bounces is explained in the diagram below.

There are many factors that will affect the height a ball will bounce. I will vary the height the ball is dropped from. This factor will change the height in bounce, as the ball will be faster when it hits the ground as the higher the height dropped from the more time it has to accelerate. I will drop the ball from height going up in 20cm from 20cm to 200cm and record how high the ball bounces. I believe this to be a good range to drop them from as it is very a large and should indicate a pattern on a graph and make it easy to apply a line of best fit and predict further results. The measurements will be made and measured with a metre stick, as it is appropriate for the lengths involved in the experiment. The results will be recorded to the nearest centimetre as this is a small and accurate enough measurement and if any smaller measurement was used I believe no more accurate conclusions to be made. Each length will be tested five times so I can average them and I will also expel any results that are further than 5cms from the median result, treating them as anomalous results making my results more reliable. I will then graph these results to help identify a pattern or trend in the data. While carrying out the experiment I will have to make sure some variables do not change or the experiment will not be fair as some tests may have different conditions than others. The same ball must be used every time as a different ball may be of a different size, air pressure, material or weight. A different size wound mean that the ball would bump into more or less air particles making the ball accelerate slower or faster. If the air pressure of the ball changed then the height the ball would bounce would change because the air particles in the ball would make the ball revert to its original shape much quicker. The temperature of the ball will also change this. If the material of the ball were to be changed then the way the energy was diffused would differ as depending on the material used, more sound energy, or heat energy would be released. Also, the material of the ball would change the amount the ball changed shape as the ball hit the ground releasing less energy when it reverts to its original. The weight of the ball if changed would change the ball’s exceleration making the test unfair. The ball used will be of a lightweight and small size as the height the ball will bounce will be quite high making the difference

David Barnes

in height of the bounces bigger and more distinguished. The material the ball was bounced on must be kept the same as different surfaces will change the way the energy is used as more or less energy will be given off as heat or sound changing the amount of energy contributed to how high the ball will bounce. There are other variables, which cannot be controlled as easily but will make the test unfair. Room temperature will make the ball accelerate quicker or slower as the air molecules moving faster or slower will obstruct the ball’s ...

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David Barnes

Prediction: I predict that the higher the ball is dropped from the higher it will bounce as the ball has more time to accelerate and so if it is travelling faster when it hits the ground it has more energy to propel it back up again. Also the higher the ball is dropped, the less I believe the bounce will increase on the previous height as the acceleration will decrease.

Results:

(All measurements in cm)

Conclusion: I conclude that from the evidence collected the higher a ball is bounced from the higher it will bounce. This is because the speed it is travelling at when it hits the surface is higher and so has more energy to bounce back up again with. I also conclude that my graph tells me the amount it bounces up increases less in the higher lengths, as the acceleration is less. This will continue until the ball is dropped from a high enough height where it can achieve terminal velocity so if the height were increased beyond this the bounce would not increase as the speed can not increase on the last height.

Evaluation: I think that the accuracy of the test did not need to be improved upon as I think the results were accurate enough to supply a conclusion. The experiment was also quite reliable , although the graph does show a single reading that is a slight anomalies but this did not effect my conclusion. A further amount of heights could have been done to support what I have concluded – that when the ball is dropped from a height where it can achieve terminal velocity a larger height will not make it bounce any higher. But the heights used in such a test would be very large and hard to measure accurately.

Find out and investigate the factors that effect how high a ball will bounce.

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