The bounce of a ball Essays

The bounce of a ball Essays The bounce of a ball Paper The bounce of a ball Paper The balls will always be dropped from the chosen heights. E. g. 1 metre, 0. 8 metres, etc. After releasing the ball we will then measure the maximum height it reaches after bouncing. The ball I will test is: Bouncy ball it will be made of rubber. The heights I will drop the ball from are: 20m 40m 60m 80m Another factor, which I will be testing, is the surface I drop the ball on to. These will be: Wooden surface Cork surface Carpeted surface The equipment we will be using is: Retort Stand and Clamp Nail Metre ruler Bouncy ball Wooden surface Vernier Calliper Electronic Weighing Scale Diagram 1: Diagram 2: Method: 1. Collect all required equipment. 2. Set up as shown above. 3. Make sure it is safely set up, and that the nail is secured in position. 4. Draw out a table to write the results in. 5. Take the bouncy ball and drop it from your first fixed height three times. 6. Record the results that you gain 7. Repeat the process for the remaining heights. 8. Record these results. 9. Change the surface. 10. Repeat experiment with same heights. 11. Record the results. 12. Change the surface again. 13. Once again repeat the experiment. 14. Record these results as well. 15. Work out the averages of all your results. Prediction: I predict that the bouncy ball will bounce furthest on the wooden surface. This is because wood is the smoothest surface out of the three, meaning that less energy will be lost as heat/friction and so more will be put in to the actual bounce of the ball. I also think that Carpet will be the worst surface of the three, as it is a very rough surface, which is likely to make the ball lose a great deal of heat/frictional energy. I think the Cork surface will come between the two, because it is rougher than wood, but smoother than carpet. Another thing that I predict is that when the Drop height is reduced, the rebound height also is reduced. Results Analysis: Using my results, I found out many things: The bouncy ball bounced most on the wooden surface. The bouncy ball bounced higher as you increased the drop height. More Gravitational Potential Energy is stored in the ball when the drop height is increased. I got these facts by looking at the line graphs shown previously. It was easy to spot which surface made the bouncy ball bounce highest. To prove that the best surface is wood I worked out the gradient of each line. Formula: Gradient = x/y Line of best fit Graph of drop height vs rebound height: Carpet Surface: As you can see from these sums, Wood has the greatest gradient, whereas carpet has the worst. The reason for wood being better as a bouncing medium is because it is much smoother than the other surfaces. Carpet is extremely rough in texture causing more friction when the ball hits it, which in turn causes more energy loss. Both of the graphs I have drawn are very similar in shape. They look absolutely identical but there are minute differences. I also noticed a relationship between the drop height and the surface used. As I increased the drop height, the ball bounced a considerable amount higher. This was the case for all surfaces. Never did the rebound height remain constant when if the drop height was changed. Conclusion: There are many reasons to why I got the results I did. There are many factors that a ball may have to influence its bounce. Some examples are: size, weight, material, etc. These characteristics as well as the bounce surface influence how well or badly a ball will bounce. The wooden surface, being the smoothest of the three, proved to make the bouncy ball bounce highest. The reason for this is because less energy is lost as heat/frictional energy. This means that there is more kinetic energy, which would mean that the ball would bounce more. The cork surface, being in between carpet and wood I terms of roughness, turned out to be second best. More energy than the wooden surface is being lost by heat/sound energy, but less is being lost than the carpet surface. The carpet surface was the worst. The ball just died out as soon it hit the carpet. This is due to its roughness and material. Carpet makes the ball lose the most heat/sound energy. The loss of more heat/sound energy would mean that there is less kinetic energy available, so the ball will not travel very far. As these were proven in my results, that would mean that my Prediction was absolutely correct. The best surface was wood, and the worst was carpet. The rebound height did decrease when the drop height decreased. Evaluation: On the whole I think that the experiment went quite well. I obtained sufficient results needed for a good experiment write up. I took three results for each drop height of each ball. By doing this, I was able to average the three and also exclude any results that did not fit in with the others. I think that my results were fairly accurate. The theories that I predicted were right. My graphs look fairly good, however there are a few anomalous points here and there. The method I did was not excellent, and most certainly did not give me the most accurate results I was capable of betting. In the time I was given, and the equipment I was restricted to, I would say that my method was fairly good. The Method was enough for the results we needed, but if I was to do more research and was to get more accurate results, then it could be improved hugely. The experiment had far too much space for human errors. For example, the wooden surface we used was just our workbench. Due to this there were dents and scratches in the table. Also, we had to make an accurate guess to where the rebound height was by placing our heads in level with the maximum place the ball bounced up to. After looking at the graphs with best-fit lines, there were only a few odd results. This is expected due to the conditions we were in. As the drop height increased the rebound height increased. There were some factors, which we did not take into account, which could have affected the experiment slightly: There could have been a some wind which affected the bounce of the ball The temperature could have increased or decreased from room temperature in which case the bounce of the ball would have been affected. The ball could have hit a dent in the workbench in which case the bounce of the ball would have been affected. The ball could have not been measured properly. I dont think that I had enough evidence to draw a suitable conclusion, as there is always space for improvement. The results I took could not be necessarily that accurate. I could have performed more than three trials on each surface, in which case my average would have become very accurate. If I had better equipment, then my results would be extremely accurate, and the graphs would give would show an extremely positive correlation. If I was given the chance to do this experiment again, I would want to use more high-tech equipment, to get more accurate results. If I could repeat it again, I would want to time the drop, so that I could calculate the velocity (velocity (m/s) = distance(m) / time (sec)) Doing this would have given me the chance to calculate the loss in Kinetic Energy. Another factor I would like to investigate if I could do this experiment again is to see how the bounce between different balls differs. I could take three different balls for example and bounce them on different surfaces, which would give me a good set of results. I think I have overall found out the main factors that affect the bounce of a ball considering the situation that I was in. Rahul Krishnan 11T Physics Coursework MR Inger 26/09/01 ScD4 Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Electricity and Magnetism section.