An investigation into the effect of temperature on a squash ball

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An investigation into the effect of temperature on a squash ball

For my experiment I will be using a blue spotted squash ball. This is because the blue spotted ones are designed to have the most bounciness. This is will make it a lot easier to judge the height of the ball’s bounce making my experiment more accurate.

I’ll set up my equipment to the diagram below. Then I’ll put the squash ball in a beaker and then put the beaker in a water bath. The water will obviously be heated with a Bunsen burner which will then heat the ball up. I’ve chosen this method so the ball doesn’t get wet, and the experiment is fair. I will then drop the ball from a height of 2 meters.  It will be landing onto a piece of MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) to make sure the surface won’t affect my results, so it’s more of a fair test. To judge how high the ball has bounced, I will be using my eyesight.

Diagram

Equipment list

4 different coloured squash balls

Beaker

Water bath

2, 1 meter rulers

MDF

Kettle

Ice

Thermometer

Stopwatch

Tongs

I did a preliminary experiment to see if my method would work and if there were any problems with the way I will conduct my experiment.

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Preliminary Results

 

Factors affecting my experiment

  • If I use different squash balls of different elasticity it will affect the bounciness of the ball.
  • If I use different surfaces for the ball to bounce on, I may get different results because different surfaces absorb energy better than others.
  • If the temperature increases, then in theory the bounciness should increase. This is because the atoms have more energy so they’ll move faster; they’ll have more kinetic energy inside the ball. This ...

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Punctuation, grammar and spelling all okay. Format of the essay is also done to an acceptable format and is clear and easy to follow.

The candidate starts out well explaining what they are going to do in the experiment, and they show how they have considered and accounted for certain factors which might confound the experiments results which is good. The candidate also includes a diagram, but does not include a solid bullet pointed method which would have been good to show how to exactly do each step of the experiment. The candidate does not make a prediction and also does not back up how temperature would affect the ball with scientific evidence beforehand which would show better scientific understanding of the principles governing the reason behind the experiment. The candidate does consider principles governing the experiment at a later date which shows good understanding of atoms and gravity, but this should be interspersed earlier in the experiment so the text flows better. The results include a well presented table and graph which is good to show deeper analysis of the results. The analysis and evaluation are very well done.

The response to the experiment objective is done very well. The candidate carries out a good preliminary experiment and considers all the factors which may affect the experiment in a negative way and accounts for them. The candidate analyses and evaluates the experiment well with well set out tables and line graphs.