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Bouncing Ball Lab Report

The student conducted an experiment to investigate how the type of floor surface affects the bouncing height of a basketball. They dropped a basketball from a height of 1 meter onto different floor surfaces and recorded the bouncing height over 5 drops. The results showed that the basketball bounced highest on stone tile, which is the hardest surface, and lowest on grass, which is the softest surface. This supports the hypothesis that harder surfaces produce higher bounces due to absorbing less of the ball's kinetic energy upon impact. The student proposed ways to improve the experiment such as conducting it in a vacuum and using a machine to drop the ball for more accurate measurements.

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Vivian Chuang
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9K views

Bouncing Ball Lab Report

The student conducted an experiment to investigate how the type of floor surface affects the bouncing height of a basketball. They dropped a basketball from a height of 1 meter onto different floor surfaces and recorded the bouncing height over 5 drops. The results showed that the basketball bounced highest on stone tile, which is the hardest surface, and lowest on grass, which is the softest surface. This supports the hypothesis that harder surfaces produce higher bounces due to absorbing less of the ball's kinetic energy upon impact. The student proposed ways to improve the experiment such as conducting it in a vacuum and using a machine to drop the ball for more accurate measurements.

Uploaded by

Vivian Chuang
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Charlotte Lee H1ACO Title: Aim: To investigate how types of floor surface can affect the height of a bouncing

ball. In this experiment, different kinds of floor will be chosen for the basketball, which weights 55.7g, to be bounced on, and the dropping height will remain at constant of 100 center meters. The bouncing height of the basketball on different surfaces will be recorded. Hypothesis: The bouncing height of the basketball will vary on different surfaces. The harder the surface is, the higher the basketball bounces. As the surface gets softer, the height of the bouncing ball increases. Conservation of energy states that energy cant be destroyed, or created. When youre dropping the basketball on a softer surface, the kinetic energy of the ball will be absorbed, not destroyed, by the surface. And the balls kinetic energy as it reaches the surface will partially deform the soft surface. Therefore, only a small amount of energy is left for the ball to bounce back, which means the potential energy decreases. Whereas hard surfaces dont absorb the energy since they dont deform, and so the energy is used to deform the ball, which is then converted back to kinetic energy and the ball bounces. As the ball bounces back, the kinetic energy will be converted to potential energy. Results: We drop the ball five times on each surface at the height of 1 meter, and recorded the bouncing height.

Efficiency of A Bouncing Ball

Floor Types Carpet Stone Tile Plastic Tile Gym Floor Gravel Grass

1st Time 99 cm 99.5 cm 88 cm 95 cm 95 cm 75 cm

2nd Time 97.5 cm 96 cm 88 cm 96.5 cm 96 cm 85 cm

3rd Time 100 cm 102 cm 87.5 cm 92 cm 94.5 cm 83.5 cm

4th Time 100 cm 99 cm 89.5 cm 94 cm 95 cm 88 cm

5th Time 95 cm 104 cm 89.5 cm 98 cm 96.5 cm 89 cm

Charlotte Lee H1ACO

We calculate the average bouncing height by adding all the numbers from each time and divided by 5.

Dropping Height 1m 1m 1m 1m 1m 1m

Floor Type Carpet Stone Tile Plastic Tile Gym Floor Gravel Grass

Average Bouncing Height 98.3 cm 100.1 cm 88.5 cm 95.1 cm 95.4 cm 84.1 cm

Conclusion: As we can see from the data above, stone tile is the hardest surface among them all, and so its bouncing height is the highest. Grass is the softest surface, and so its bouncing height is the lowest. What we found out is that as the surface the ball bounces on gets harder, the bouncing height increases. Therefore, the hypothesis is correct. Evaluation: To make the result more accurate, we could do this experiment in a vacuum, in order to eliminate the uncertainties cause by the air resistance. We could also use a machine instead of our own hands, so that as the ball drops, there will not be rotation on the ball, which increases the accuracy of the measured bouncing height and you could make sure that it does bounce straight up. In addition, we could make sure the surfaces we use are smooth, so that the fiction force can be reduced, and increase the accuracy of the bouncing height.

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