If I drop the marble and instead of landing in the sand it misses and lands in the tray, I should be careful not to drop it on the floor.
We shouldn’t run around in the laboratory where the experiment is taking place because we might accidentally knock something over or get hurt ourselves. For further safety we shouldn’t throw sand around so it doesn’t go into people’s eyes.
Fair Test:
To ensure my experiment is a fair test I will keep all my variables the same.
I will use the same marble throughout the experiment and the same size marble.
I will keep the amount of sand the same all throughout my experiment. I will use the same volume of sand. I will use the same type of sand in my experiment.
I will keep the same ruler in my whole experiment.
I’ll keep the same mass of my marble.
The only thing that will change in my experiment is the height that the marble will be dropped from.
Prediction:
I predict that the higher the height from which marble is dropped from the larger the width of the crater will be. This is because if it is dropped from a greater height the marble will have a much greater impact with the sand. The marble has its own potential energy which means once it is dropped; it will fall back to the ground. The movement of the marble shows kinetic energy.
Once the marble is released it will gain speed as it falls towards the sand, however the speed will not continue to increase. It will go steady as the force of gravity acts upon it. The marble at 1st will fall with momentum which means it remains at a constant speed while falling.
Table of Results:
Conclusion:
I found out that the greater the height from where the marble is dropped the bigger the crater. The higher the marble the more potential energy gained and it will achieve more velocity and so hits the sand with a greater impact this is because the marble has its own potential energy which means once it was dropped; it fell back to the ground. As I mentioned in my prediction the movement of the marble showed kinetic energy.
Once the marble was released it gained speed as it fell towards the sand, however the speed didn’t continue to increase. It went steady as the force of gravity was acting upon it. The marble at first fell with momentum which meant it remained at a constant speed whilst falling.
Evaluation:
If I had the chance to repeat this experiment I would investigate further by getting more results and then getting the average from the results I obtained in order for me to have maximum accuracy to make a conclusion.
In addition to that to make this investigation more accurate I would improve certain things. If I was to be given more money I would carry this experiment out on a larger scale, maybe by using a big sand pit and a greater marble. Also I would use proper equipment to flatten out the sand in the tray as this could also have a great effect on my results which would make the experiment very accurate.
