golf ball drop experiment

Ball Drop Experiment by MaryBeth Weier

Objectives:   Students will collect data from bouncing balls.                     Students will graph their data.                     Students will find the slope and equation of best-fit line for their data.                     Students will verify their calculations using the graphing calculator . Materials:   “Ball Drop Experiment” activity sheet                     Balls that bounce well. (Tennis, golf, basketball, rubber ball)                     Tape measures                     Masking tape                     Graphing calculator Procedure: 1.  In groups of three, students drop one ball from eight different heights and record the bounce height (to the nearest centimeter) for each drop. 2.  Repeat the experiment using a different ball but dropping from the same heights as in step 1. 3. Graph bounce height vs. drop height for each ball and draw the best-fit line for each ball. Students should have two lines on their graph. 4. Chose two points on each line and find the slope and equation of the best-fit line for each ball. 5.  Enter the data into the lists of the graphing calculator with drop heights in L1, bounce heights for ball #1 in L2, and bounce heights for ball #2 in L3. 6.  Create a scatter plot of the data on the calculator and use the STATCALC menu to find the regression equation.  Show the teacher the scatter plot and the equation. Compare the calculator equation with the equation calculated by hand. 7.  Answer the questions on the Ball Drop Experiment activity sheet.  

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Instructional Resources and Lecture Demonstrations

1c20.15 - free-fall - dropping balls.

Choose any two different mass balls from the set and drop them from the same height onto the pizza pan.  You should be able to hear that they hit the pan at the same time as expected.  Repeat the experiment with the golf ball and Ping Pong ball and you should hear that they hit at different times.  This shows that the air has a much greater effect on the Ping Pong ball due to its larger diameter and small mass.  In effect it reaches a terminal velocity very quickly which is not seen with the golf ball over the short drop distances used.

• G. Bozzo, "'Free-Fall Demonstrations' in the High School Laboratory", TPT, Vol. 58, #1, Jan. 2020, p. 23.
• Elida de Obaldia, Norma Miller, Fred Wittel, George Jaimison, and Kendra Wallis, "Bridging the Conceptual Gap Between Free Fall and Drag-Dominated Regimes", TPT, Vol. 54, #4, Apr. 2016, p. 233.
• Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey, "Measuring the Drag Force on a Falling Ball", TPT, Vol. 52, #3, Mar. 2014, p. 169.
• J. Messer and J. Pantaleone, "The Effective Mass of a Ball in the Air", TPT, Vol. 48, #1, Jan. 2010, p. 52.
• Robert Ehrlich and Mary Lynn Hutchinson, "Random and Systemic Errors in Timing the Fall of a Coin", TPT, Vol. 32, #1, Jan. 1994, p. 51.
• Byron L. Coulter and Carl G. Adler, "Can a Body Pass a Body Falling Through the Air?", AJP, Vol. 47, #10, Oct. 1979, p. 841.
• Jeffrey Lindemuth, "The Effect of Air Resistance on Falling Balls", AJP, Vol. 39, #7, July 1971, p. 757.
• Robert Ehrlich, "2.8. Timing the Fall of Dropped Objects", Why Toast Lands Jelly-Side Down, p. 32.
• Robert Ehrlich, "A.1. Dropping Balls of Different Sizes", Turning the World Inside Out and 174 Other Simple Physics Demonstrations, p. 3 - 4.
• John Henry Pepper and Henry George Hine, "Gravitaion", The Boy's Playbook of Science, p. 14.
• Borislaw Bilash II and David Maiullo, "Heavier - Not Faster", A Demo a Day: A Year of Physics Demonstrations, p. 33.

Disclaimer: These demonstrations are provided only for illustrative use by persons affiliated with The University of Iowa and only under the direction of a trained instructor or physicist.  The University of Iowa is not responsible for demonstrations performed by those using their own equipment or who choose to use this reference material for their own purpose.  The demonstrations included here are within the public domain and can be found in materials contained in libraries, bookstores, and through electronic sources.  Performing all or any portion of any of these demonstrations, with or without revisions not depicted here entails inherent risks.  These risks include, without limitation, bodily injury (and possibly death), including risks to health that may be temporary or permanent and that may exacerbate a pre-existing medical condition; and property loss or damage.  Anyone performing any part of these demonstrations, even with revisions, knowingly and voluntarily assumes all risks associated with them.

Ball Drop Science Projects

Although dropping a ball and letting it bounce seems like a common everyday occurrence, there are numerous forces at work in this scenario. Several different projects can reveal transfer of energy or acceleration taking place.

Energy Transferring from Kinetic to Potential and Back Again

When a dropped ball collides with the ground, its kinetic energy is transferred into potential energy as the ball compresses. Then, as the ball's elasticity causes it to expand, potential energy is transformed back into kinetic energy in the form of the ball bouncing back up off the ground. To see this transfer of energy, drop several different types of balls onto the ground from the same height and see how high each type of ball rebounds. Determine which balls are the most efficient at transferring kinetic energy to potential energy and back again.

Double Ball Drop

Energy can be transferred from kinetic to potential, and it can also be transferred during the course of a collision. To observe this transfer of energy, start by dropping a basketball from a given height and then measuring how high it bounces. Next, drop the basketball from the same height, but this time with a racquetball placed directly on top of it. Record the height of the basketball on this drop and compare it to the height seen on the first drop.

Tracking the Acceleration of a Dropped Ball

A ball will accelerate toward the ground after being dropped, and you can track this acceleration using a video camera and a projector. Start by video recording a person dropping a ball and that ball hitting the ground at a rate of about 60 frames per second. All the action should take place in the same frame. Next, project the video of the falling ball onto a large sheet or multiple sheets of paper taped to a wall. Then plot the ball's fall one frame at a time. It should be evident that the ball moves farther from frame to frame the closer to the ground it gets.

Galileo Thought Experiment

Galileo famously showed that all objects fall at the same rate by dropping two cannonballs with different weights off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He also proposed a thought experiment to demonstrate the same concept. To conduct this thought experiment, tie a large ball to a smaller ball. Drop both balls simultaneously and see how long they take to hit the ground. Then, disconnect the two balls and drop them simultaneously again. According to Galileo, the amount of time for the "joined" drop and the the two individual balls should be the same, as neither ball was pulling up or down on the other one while the two were attached.

• CED Academy: Physics Ball Drop
• NOVA: Falling Objects

Cite This Article

Smith, Brett. "Ball Drop Science Projects" sciencing.com , https://www.sciencing.com/ball-drop-science-projects-5761172/. 24 April 2017.

Smith, Brett. (2017, April 24). Ball Drop Science Projects. sciencing.com . Retrieved from https://www.sciencing.com/ball-drop-science-projects-5761172/

Smith, Brett. Ball Drop Science Projects last modified August 30, 2022. https://www.sciencing.com/ball-drop-science-projects-5761172/

Recommended

Following the Bouncing Golf Ball

Sc 130 physical science practical examination.

Obtain a meter stick and golf ball.

Experimental Procedure

• Hold the golf ball center 20 centimeters above the table in front of a vertical meter stick.
• Drop the golf ball.
• Measure the maximum height of the first bounce.
• Record the drop height and bounce in centimeters in the table below.
• Repeat the procedure for 40 cm and 60 cm.
• Drop the golf ball on the floor from 80 cm, repeating the rest of the above procedure.  
• Continue dropping the golf ball on the floor for 100 cm, 120 cm, 140 cm, and 160 cm.
• Find the mass of the golf ball in grams: __________________

Graphing the Data

• Graph the drop height in cm on the x-axis and the bounce height in cm on the y-axis.

Calculations

• Fit a best line to the points.
• Pick two points, one near each end of the best fit line.
• Determine the coordinates of the two points, (x 1 , y 1 ) and (x 2 , y 2 )
• Use the formula for determining the slope from two points to obtain the slope: m = (y 2 - y 1 ) / (x 2 - x 1 )

slope m = __________________

• Use the formula for determining the slope from two points to obtain the slope: (y - y 1 ) = m(x - x 1 )

y-intercept = _____________

• The potential energy of the golf ball can be calculated from PE = mgh where m is the mass of the golf ball in grams, g is the acceleration of gravity (980 cm/s 2 ), and h is the height of the golf ball above the ground in centimeters.  The mass of the golf ball was determined above.  Calculate the potential energy of the golf ball when it is 160 cm above the ground: PE = mass*(980 cm/s 2 )(160 cm)

PE 160 = _____________

• Calculate the potential energy of the golf ball at the top of its first bounce after a drop of 160 centimeters using the data collected in the laboratory above.

PE first bounce after 160 drop = _____________

• What will the bounce height in centimeters be for a drop height of 200 cm?
• What will the bounce height in centimeters be for a drop height of 4 meters?
• What will the bounce height in centimeters be for a drop height of 0 cm?
• Did the golf gain or lose energy between the drop from 160 cm and the top of the first bounce?
• Energy being conserved, into or from what form was the energy difference converted between the drop from 160 cm and the top of the first bounce?  In other words, what happened to the energy difference?  If the ball gained energy, where did it come from?  If the ball lost energy, into what other forms of energy was the energy converted?

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