Gravity made the ball come down when it was dropped. There was a little friction on the bounce surface as it was not smooth. Energy was lost ion the form of heat and sound energy. The squash ball did not bounce back to its drop height because energy was lost as heat
and sound energy.
Drag
Weight
Sandeep Brar 10D2
Potential Energy
Kinetic Energy
Surface Friction Losing energy to the surface
As the squash ball bounces gravitational potential energy is converted into kinetic energy as the ball is falling down and when the ball touches the surface it loses energy in the form of heat and sound energy. The squash ball also loses energy because of friction on the surface.
This is why a ball can never bounce back to it’s original position form where it was dropped from.
The Law of Conservation of energy is:
Energy can never be crated nor destroyed- it can only be converted from one energy type to another.
Anything which is moving has kinetic energy and potential energy is energy due to height.
There are a number of different types of squash ball and they all have different pressures inside them. Boyle’s Law is-if you squash a gas into a smaller space, the pressure goes up in proportion to how much you squash it. So if I had squashed the squash ball to half it’s size the pressure inside it would double.
Variables:
The variables in this investigation are the temperature of the water in which the squash ball was to be warmed in. Another variable is the amount of time I kept the squash ball in the water for, the height from which I dropped the squash ball from each time would also be a variable. Other variables in this investigation are the surface on which I dropped the squash ball onto.
Sandeep Brar 10D2
Results Table:
Conclusion:
After looking at both my results table and my graph which was based on the results table I have reached the conclusion that my prediction was correct, the warmer the squash ball was the higher it would bounce. This is because when it was warmer it contained more energy and it would bounce higher. No matter how much energy the squash ball had it would never be able to bounce back to its original drop height. The squash ball would always lose some energy in the form of sound and heat energy or it would lose energy because of the friction on the bounce surface. The results from my table have also been shown on a graph with a line of best fit going through it. The best fit line does not actually pass through many points but most of the points are near the line with maybe one or two exceptions. This tells me that perhaps one or two of my results are not correct and I should repeat that part of the investigation to make sure if the results are correct or incorrect.
Evaluation:
In this investigation I think I worked well because I was able to understand what to do and how to carry out the investigation. I think I was able to set the investigation up quickly and obtain my results quickly as well.
I could have improved my investigation a number of ways. I could have used a squash ball with a different number of dots or a squash ball with different colour dots, instead of the two dot yellow ball I had used. I also could have tried dropping the squash ball from a different height to see what affect that would have on the ball’s bounce height. I could also have used different temperatures for the squash ball. e.g: room temperature of 23 degrees centigrade.
If I had another chance to carry out this investigation then I would also would have repeated the investigation to compare results. I would also repeat individual bounce two or three times to make sure the results are correct and it is a fair test.
To make the investigation a fair test I used the same drop height and same squash ball throughout the whole investigation. Next time I could time how long the squash ball is put into the water each time to make the investigation and results more accurate.
