I will change the height of the ramp every cm. This so I could get a good set of results. I will start from 1 cm and finish at 30cm. I will record the time in seconds so afterward I could calculate the speed, the gravitation potential energy and the kinetic energy.
To make this experiment more accurate, I will do each experiment three times, then I will do the average for the speed. I will need to make sure that I have the same equipments if I would do this experiment on two different days. If I am going to this experiment on different day, I will need to make sure that the ball bearing is the weight and that the same person would do it, e.g. the person that is dropping the ball and the person that times it have to be the same. This so that my experiment is a fair test. And also I need to do at a room temperature, if the whether is too hot, the ball will be going faster as the ramp has some moist.
Methods
- Measure every cm up the side of the ramp to mark where to move it each time.
- Clamp the ramp to the wood.
- Move the ramp to the cm to want it to be.
- Let the ball go. Be sure not to push it.
- Start the stopwatch when the ball finishes its decent and starts travelling on the level.
- Repeat the steps above at the same place three times for accuracy.
- Move the ramp a cm up and repeats all of these steps.
Results
Analysis of Results
My prediction was correct. As the height goes higher the speed of the ball bearing getting faster. The graph shows that at the beginning the speed increases quickly, but towards the end the speed doesn’t change as quickly. This is because the speed has reach terminal velocity. This means that the speed and the friction are balanced. The terminal velocity is 1.9m/s.
As the height of the ramp goes higher, the potential energy is also increases. The potential energy always has to be higher than the kinetic energy. At the beginning, before the ball decent, the potential energy will be stored. But when the ball starts to move, the potential energy will be transfer to kinetic energy mostly. The ball was travelling faster as when it reaches the bottom of the ramp, it would already lost the potential energy. However, not all of the potential energy was transferred into kinetic energy. Some will be transferred to heat and sound as waste energy as the ball travelling its way through the ramp. The graph shows this waste energy.
The results proved that my prediction was correct. The higher the ramp, the faster the ball will go. The higher the ramp, the more potential energy the ball will have, therefore the more potential energy the ball have, the faster the ball will go as there will be more energy transfer into the kinetic energy.
Evaluation
I think my measurements were pretty accurate. I can surely rely on the results. However there were some numbers of anomalies.
At 1cm the potential energy was less than the kinetic energy. This should not happen, as the potential energy has to be more than kinetic energy. I think this because for the first cm, the ramp was quite low, so the person who drops the ball probably gave a little push without releasing it to get it going.
And also at 6cm, the first timing wasn’t as accurate because the three times were spread out, 1.29s, 1.41s, 135s. This is just an example. I think this is because the person who timed this might press the start/stop button to quickly or to slower. This happens quite a lot of time.
As I have said in my conclusion, my results does proved my prediction and support my conclusion.
If I was to do this experiment again, I will make sure that the person who drop the ball don’t give extra push and I would have done it more than three time.
I could extend my experiment by perhaps looking at the mass of the ball bearing – different mass to see if it affects the speed or looking at the materials of the ball bearing.
