Planning Bouncing Balls,

Goals
What is the maximum bounce height of a bouncing ball?
Can we get a ball to bounce back to original drop height?
Variables,
With many variables you can control them or vary them,
The thing that is most important is that you make a decision, explain your decision and then
stick to your decision (CONSISTENCY)
For example
Drop height exact position of the ball before release

Each variable (of the 4) can be simplified, but really we want to analyse what we mean by that
variable and how we could change it.
Type of surface
materials
Where the ball bounces
(impact surface)
(example marble window sill or wooden bench?)

Type of ball
(could change the ball)
material of ball?
Just Tonys bouncing balls or your own balls?
Mass of ball?
Size (diameter of ball)?

Resistance
Wind or air
Complete the experiment in 1 day or over 2
lessons?
Is temperature constant?
Humidity?
Side winds? (if outdoors)

Drop height
Exact drop position (see above image this could
lead to an error of 5cm)
regular drop height
dropping from 100cm, 90 cm, 80cm, 70cm etc.

You need to complete your plan,

Fair test
Vary 1 variable,
Keep all other variables constant.
What are you going to investigate?
Planning,
V37 Fri = 1st planning,
V38 Wed = more planning + 1st attempt of experiments (collecting results)
V38 Fri = no lesson (IB activities day)
V39 Wed = 2nd and final possibility to collect data.
V39 Fri = Tony to clarify data handling + conclusions + evaluations.
V40 = submit completed work to Tony (via MB + dropbox)
(note, shared plan, shared results solo conclusions + evaluations)

What you should have:

Name,
Title (is this the same as your aim?)
Aim (what were you investigating?)
Method (what did you do as a team? What equipment did you use? What did you vary? How did you cary
it? What was constant? How did you keep it constant?)
Results (what results do you have? Present these in a results table)
Processing
Note 1 collecting your results = collecting raw data
Processing raw data,
Hopefully, 2 or 3 or 4 repeats for each experiment,
(i)
look at the data can you see obvious errors? highlight these errors, do NOT use them
anymore!
(ii)
From your good data take an average value (add up and divide by the amount)
(iii)
If your data is NOT continuous then you move on (=bouncing ball on different surfaces)
(iv)
If you can plot an x-y scattergraph then do this (punkt in excel)

Solo work:
Conclusion (what have you discovered / found out)
State the obvious which is best / worst? qualitative statement
If you can be more detailed, please do so quantitative statement so say this is best BECAUSE ---%
this is worst because ---%
If you can, please try to explain WHY you have these results
Or make an educated guess as to WHY you have these results
Evaluation
(what went wrong, what can be improved for next time)
here is where you should try to explain the cause of obvious errors
How accurate your experiment was? what were the problems with your experiment (problem with the
apparatus OR problem with the recording of data)
How could these problems be avoided (minimized) next time?