Investigating the Bounce of a Squash Ball

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Investigating the Bounce of a Squash Ball

In this investigation I will be measuring the bounce of a squash ball and record the results in a table and on a graph with an aggression line.

There are a number of factors which could influence the bounce these include the following;

Type of surface

Angle of surface

Angle at which Ball is dropped

Material of Ball

Mass of Ball

Diameter of Ball

Temperature of Ball

Pressure of Air in Ball

Air Resistance

Height of Drop

Force used to Drop Ball

Acceleration Due to Gravity

Temperature of the Ball

To make the test fair, certain variables have to be kept fixed and at a constant otherwise the results would not be right and a conclusion cannot be drawn from the anomalous results.

Force used to Drop Ball

According to how much force is applied to drop the ball, it will bounce higher or less. If suitable equipment was available in the school, students may be able to automate the “dropping of the ball” process so that a machine drops it from a given height. This would eliminate the possibility of human error, as we would not be able to drop the ball with an equal force each time making the results unfair. However, such equipment is not available to use and so the next best thing to do is to simply hold the ball at whichever height you wish to test it at and then let go of the ball, applying no force and letting gravity pull the ball down to the hard surface. This will be done to all the balls when dropping them to ensure fair results.

Acceleration due to Gravity

The gravitational pull is lower in areas of high altitude, so if the experiments were carried out at different altitudes, the results would be unfair as there is less gravitational force acting on the ball. However this is very unlikely to happen, as all tests will be carried out in the lab, at a constant altitude making the tests fair and the results reliable!

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Height of Drop

As seen in the preliminary work, the higher the height at which the ball is dropped from, the higher it will bounce back. This is because as the ball travels down, it has more time to gather speed if dropped from a higher height due to the acceleration of gravity and this will increase the height at which the ball bounces back up as the ball will bounce up with a greater force. For all experimenting, the height will be kept at a constant i.e. if I was investigating the bounce of ball heated at 300C ...

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