Bouncing Ball Experiment

Bouncing Ball Experiment

A squash ball is a hollow ball made of rubber, with air inside. Before

starting a game of squash, most players will "warm up" the ball by

knocking it around the court. This raises the temperature of the ball

and increases the "bounciness". In this experiment you can investigate

the effect of temperature on the height to which a ball bounces. An

alternative experiment is to investigate how the height of each

successive bounce changes.

Planning your experiment

The height to which the ball bounces will depend on the initial height

and the temperature, so you must decide which of the variables you are

going to investigate and how you can ensure that your experiment is a

"fair test". You must then decide the range over which you are going

to make measurements and how many measurements you should make. e.g.

if you were varying the temperature of the ball, what would be

suitable value for the maximum temperature? Should you make

measurements every degree, every 5 degrees, every 10 degrees, etc.

How could you change the temperature of the ball and measure the

temperature? Should the heights be measured from the top, bottom or

middle of the ball? In a real experiment, it is obviously not possible

to stop the ball at the top of its bounce - so how could you measure

the height of the bounce? In an actual experiment, what precautions

could

you take to ensure that the results were as accurate as possible?

Making a prediction

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Try to predict what your results will show. E.g. if you were planning

to change the temperature of the ball, would you expect the bounce

height to increase or decrease as the temperature is increased? Can

you think of a scientific reason for your prediction?

Fair tests

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In any experiment there are usually several factors or variables that

you could change. For example, suppose you were asked to investigate

what affects the rate at which a container of hot water cools down.