Bouncy Ball ExperimentJoin now to read essay Bouncy Ball ExperimentBouncy Ball ExperimentThe aim of this experiment is to investigate the efficiency of a bouncing ball, and the factors which affect its efficiency.PredictionI predict that the higher I drop the ball from the higher it will rebound up, because it will have more gravitational potential energy the higher dropped from. As it is dropped the ball will have kinetic energy, and then when it hits the ground changes to heat and sound energy, and kinetic as it rebounds back up. The higher up the ball is dropped from the more gravitational potential, more kinetic energy on the way down and therefore more sound heat and kinetic energy when hitting the ground. The ball will bounce higher the higher dropped from as the energy has to go somewhere! The ball’s efficiency (what fraction of the energy the ball has left after being dropped), will when dropped from a small height i.e. 25cm, be a high percentage, because air resistance won’t affect the ball. As the height dropped from increases the ball will bounce higher but the amount it increases by will get less. (See graph) This is because as the ball is dropped from a higher height the amount of kinetic energy on the way down is greater, this could make the ball reach terminal velocity, but even if it does not air resistance will affect it more. The ball will reach a certain height where it reaches terminal velocity on the way down and will rebound up as high as it if it was dropped from a higher height.
Theory:The ball has gravitational potential energy at point A just before it is released.As the ball falls from point A to B it has kinetic energy.At B just before the ball hits the surface it has gravitational potential and kinetic energy.When the ball hits the surface and deforms it has elastic energy.At point C when the ball is rebounding and travelling upwards it has kinetic energy.At point D when the ball has reached its maximum rebound and is momentarily stationary it has gravitational potential energy.The height of the ball at point D (its maximum rebound height) is lower than the point A (the height the ball was dropped from) it shows that the ball has lost energy.
This shows that when the ball hit the surface it lost energy through sound and hitting the air, sound and heat energy was involved.The equation for gravitational potential energy is:Mass x gravity x heightThe equation for efficiency of an energy transfer process is:Useful energy inputUseful energy output x 100The efficiency in the ball situation is:Mass at startMass at end x 100The total of the energy input is at point A on the diagram at the start.The useful energy output is at point D at the end.To calculate the efficiency of the bouncy ball the equation to use is:Height at endHeight at start x 100Before doing my experiment I conducted a preliminary experiment using different types of balls. A variable which I won’t change when conducting my experiment, firstly at 1m with all the balls and then at 0.5m with all the balls. I dropped each ball 3 times to get an average and a more accurate result.
I ran a test between 0m and 9m, and the total amount of data was:
0m 0m 1000m 0m 9m 50m 1000m
I’m not confident this is correct. I’m guessing that it was at 7m, which is 8.5x too many balls. Any solutions to this would be good in my opinion. My final verdict is that ball size depends more on the weight of the balls, and not on the ball type. I’d recommend you to start increasing ball size before you change the ball type. It’ll give you a good idea how much to keep in a ball that is already at a large amount. After that it would be a good idea to rewound the ball and try again. I hope this helps.
It is possible to do this experiment at the base or the starting position in your local sports stadium, and it’d be perfect to continue the experiment with all the ball types in the field.
References :
1. Cauco, E.E., A.R. Schafer, H. Mott, H. Hirschner, and R.M. Hirschner. A study on the stability and stability of light in the sky.–1, p. 31–51.
2. Hirschner, R.P., & Hirschner, K. D. (1995). A study on stability of light after contact with light at different distances, measured on the vertical. Journal of Space Physics.
1st Drop at 1m (cm)2nd Drop at 1m (cm)3rd Drop at 1m (cm)Average (cm)Efficiency (%)Ping Pong63.3333333363.33333333Tennis56.6666666756.66666667BouncySquash68.3333333368.33333333Ist drop at 0.5m (cm)2nd Drop at 0.5m (cm)3rd Drop at 0.5m (cm)Average (cm)Efficiency (%)Ping Pong35.3333333370.66666667