What are the physics behind bouncing balls?
The air in the ball acts like a spring—it gets compressed and expands again. During the collision, some of the ball’s energy is converted into heat. As a consequence, the ball shoots up with less energy than it had when it reached Earth.
Which ball will bounce the highest science project?
rubber bouncy ball
Results: On average, the rubber bouncy ball will bounce the highest, followed by the ping pong ball. The marble will bounce the least high.

How is energy being dissipated from a bouncing ball?
The ball hits the ground where some energy is dissipated to heat and friction. While traveling back up, the ball’s energy is losing kinetic energy while gaining potential energy (conserved energy). Again, some energy is dissipated to air resistance so that the ball does not reach its initial height with which it began.
What forces affect a bouncing ball?
The forces acting on a spinning ball during impact are the force of gravity, the normal force, and the force of friction (which has in general both a ‘translational’ and a ‘rotational’ component).

How does gravity affect the bounce of a ball?
When a ball is dropped gravity pulls the ball toward the ground, slowing the ball down so that each bounce is shorter and shorter, until eventually the ball stops bouncing. The force of the ball hitting the hard ground puts an equal force back onto the ball, meaning it bounces back up.
How is the air resistance affects the bounce of the ball?
Air resistance as well as spin can alter the motion of the bouncing ball, preventing the bounce from taking the shape of a perfect parabola. The ball moves in two planes: vertical (up and down) and horizontal (moving forward).
How do different surfaces affect the bounce of a ball?
A hard surface, like concrete or hardwood, hardly absorbs any, so most of the kinetic energy of the fall goes into bouncing the ball back up. A soft surface, like grass or carpet, absorbs more energy from the fall, so there’s less left to push the ball back up, and it bounces pretty badly.
How does the size of a ball affect its bounce?
The air friction is approximately proportional to the square of the radius at high speeds, and to the radius at low speeds. So for bigger balls the ratio of gravitational to frictional force goes up, compared to small balls. That would tend to make the large balls bounce higher.
What type of energy system is a bouncing ball open or closed?
When a basketball bounces, it has two different types of energy: kinetic energy and potential energy. Kinetic energy is the energy an object has due to being in motion.
What type of motion is a bouncing ball?
periodic motion
periodic motion, in physics, motion repeated in equal intervals of time. Periodic motion is performed, for example, by a rocking chair, a bouncing ball, a vibrating tuning fork, a swing in motion, the Earth in its orbit around the Sun, and a water wave.
What is the dependent variable in the bouncing ball experiment?
2. Because we can drop the ball from any height we choose, the drop height is called the independent variable. But since the rebound height depends on the drop height, the rebound height is called the dependent variable.
Does Weight Affect bounce?
In conclusion , this experiment’s data shows that the weight of the ball does matter when it comes to bouncing. If its to heavy it won’t bounce to high because of its weight. If its to light it won’t have enough force to bounce.
How does the size of the ball affect the bounce?
What factors affect bounce efficiency?
What factors affect the efficiency of the bounce of a ball?
- The height at which the ball is dropped. We would use a meter rule to measure where we dropped the ball from and then what peak it reached whilst bouncing.
- The surface onto which it is dropped.
- The type of ball used.
How does air pressure affect the bounce of a ball?
When a ball has more air inside of it, there is more pressure which causes the material of the ball to be less floppy and deform less when bounced. Also, when there is more air there is a greater force acting against the ground upon impact.
What is the relationship between drop height and bounce height?
The relationship between drop height and bounce height is only linear for small drop heights. Once a ball reaches a certain height, the bounce height will begin to level off because the ball will reach its terminal velocity.
How does elasticity affect the bounce of a ball?
In elastic materials, like play dough, the molecules don’t return to their original shape at all. When we drop a ball of play dough, the kinetic energy is spent by squashing it. This flattens the ball and releases thermal energy. Instead of bouncing, the ball of play dough actually warms up!
How does temperature affect bounce of a ball?
One factor that can influence the bounce of a ball is the temperature of the ball. A warmer ball will bounce higher than a cold one. The reason for this is twofold. In a hollow ball, the change in temperature causes a change in air pressure within the ball.
Why does a bigger ball bounce higher?
Can heat inflate a ball?
When the temperature is warm it causes the expansion of air and the ball can become slightly over-inflated.
How does a surface affect the bounce height of a ball?
How Does height affect the bounce of a ball?
If the drop height increases, then the resulting bounce height will also increase, because as the drop height increases, so does the gravitational potential energy which can be converted back into kinetic energy on the rebound.
How does pressure affect ball bounce?
With more air in the ball, the air starts at higher pressure and pushes back that much harder when the ball is bounced. So that short answer is that more inflated basketballs bounce better because they have more air pressure inside them.
How does temperature affect the restitution of a bouncing ball?
The temperature of the ball influences its coefficient of restitution. A warmer ball will bounce higher than a cold one.