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Is Friction Good or Bad?
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Adam Shuler Physical Science

Name ___________________________________________________________ Science Course_____________________________________  

Pre Lab Due ________________________________ Post Lab Due _____________________________ Grade _____________________ 

Is Friction Good or Bad? 
Have you ever had a carpet burn after someone pulled you across the floor? Have you ever felt how hot 
the  end  of  a  nail  is  after  using  the  hammer  claw  to  remove  it  from  a  block  of  wood?  Why  is  it  you  can 
warm up your hands, if you rub them together? Even without electricity when two surfaces rub against 
each other, it causes friction, with a by‐product of heat.  
 

Friction is a force that is always working against motion. 
 
The balance between friction and motion is important in many situations. For example, racecar drivers 
must have tires that will keep the car from slipping on the track, but they don’t want so much friction that 
it takes more of the car’s energy to move the car forward. They must find the “perfect” friction level to 
have the best performance.  
 
There are entire companies built around this concept of friction. There are engineering corporations who 
specialize in testing road safety by doing both field and laboratory testing.  The “Safety Direct America” is 
a company that specializes in the friction of floors. They offer services such as sustainable slip resistance 
testing and periodic slip test monitoring. Their employees make site visits, use equipment to run tests to 
gather  data.  This  provides  them  with  numbers  to  find  coefficient  of  friction  mathematical  calculations.  
Think about all the airport floors, mall floors, museum floors, and floors within businesses—safety  of the 
consumer is important, or law suites will prevail!  Other companies also have a focus on friction. Some 
experiment and chemically produce synthetic lubricants used on all kinds of machines.  
 
In some situations, we want friction, (like on roads and floors) but friction includes a loss of energy (as 
unusable  heat),  and  therefore  is  one  of  the  biggest  enemies  of  designing  efficient  machines.    Test  your 
knowledge of products designed to overcome friction by matching the description with the product.  
 
1. Greasy  substance  (stored  in  a  spray  can)  used  to  reduce  squeaks    A.   liquid graphite 
on metal objects.  B.  Wet Saw 
C.  WD‐40 
2.  Spherical  structures  placed  between  two  objects  to  ease  the  D.  ball bearings 
movement between two moving surfaces.  E.  Silicone Spray 
3. Specialized machine used to cut stone, bricks, and tile. 

4. Lubricant used in woodworking that doesn’t stain wood.  

5. A carbon‐based dry lubricant mixed with liquid base that allows it 
to be painted on leaving the friction reducing substance behind.  
 3
Friction Demo 
Trial #         
1         
2         
3         

 
PreLab Questions 
A. List some ways that friction can be reduced. Think about anything mechanical, how can you reduce 
the amount of heat and make it run more efficiently?  

  Friction can be reduced by using liquids which make parts slide.

 
 
 
B. Think about a surface where increased friction dictates safety. List some ways that friction can be 
increased. 
  Some things, like riding a motorcycle, are safer with friction, because friction
 
 
is how to motorcycles slow down.
 
The universal friction challenge‐‐Find a way to reduce heat and the amount of 
energy it takes to move two surfaces past one another. 
 
Friction is caused by the interference of the atoms or molecules of each object sliding over each other. A 
rough surface will produce more friction than a smooth surface. No matter how smooth surfaces may 
appear, they are rough on an atomic level, and when they rub, friction always produces some amount of 
heat which is lost as unusable energy. 
 
Two  types  of  friction:  The  first  is  static  friction,  which  is  friction  between  two  objects  that  aren’t 
moving.  Then  there’s  dynamic  (sometimes  called  kinetic)  Friction,  or  the  friction  between  two  moving 
objects.  
 
Your Challenge: Design a Friction Experiment 
Design a friction experiment. Think of a way to improve a product, make a machine work more efficiently 
or some other application where friction is key.  Therefore, in your experiment you will be collecting data 
to either increase, or decrease friction. Using simple materials design a way to measure the differences in 
friction so you can test your idea. 
 
You’ll need a way to compare your trials using measurement. If you study kinetic friction, you might 
design a method to drag something across a flat surface and measure how far it travels. If you want to 
study static friction, your method might include an object in which you put weight, and then measure 
how much weight it takes to overcome the friction.  
 4
My Idea: 
Rubber
  and plastics have excessive friction to be able to have good traction, which is neccesary for walking.
   How does an object used effect the production of friction?
 
Independent Variable (the ONE change you  Constants: (All the ways you will keep the experiment 
are testing)  the same so you know your independent variable is the 
  The object only thing influencing your results.) 
  The surface , time
Dependent Variable (the way you will 
measure changes) 
 
friction
  production
My Hypothesis: (Make a prediction of which group will perform the “best.”) 
I  think that the felt will preform the worst.
   Then I predcit that an object will produce friction because
 
 
Possible Materials you may consider as you design a way to measure friction 
• small box 
• pennies or pebbles 
• string  
• water (or other liquids) 
• small plastic bag 
• pencils, rods, or dowels 
• marbles  
• rubber bands 
• liquid graphite 
• vegetable oil 
• WD‐40 
• balance (measure in grams) 
• ruler (measure in cm) 
• surfaces of different roughness 
o sandpaper  o felt/fabric 
o marble   o aluminum foil 
o wood  o wax paper 
o plastic 
 
Play Time 
Using your gathered materials, play with the items until you are happy with your procedure. As you 
work, ask yourself these questions: 
• Is this accurately measuring changes in friction?  
• Does my procedure provide a measurement that can be compared? (Think about constants that 
should remain the same for each group to make them comparable.) 
• Is the procedure easily replicated so that someone else would get similar results?  
 5
• Will doing multiple trials help me to get more accurate data? Should I conduct multiple trials (then 
calculate central tendencies—mean or mode)?  
• Does my procedure allow me to compare my independent variable fairly?  
 
Write out your step‐by‐step procedure below: 
1.   I will get out the sandpaper and put it on a block of wood.
2.  I will run a small box against the sandpaper for 10 seconds
3.  I will record the data
4.  I will run pebbles against sandpaper for 10 seconds
5.  I will record the data
6.  I will run the string against the sandpaper for 10 seconds

7.  I will record the data

8.  I will run a small plastic bag against sandpaper for 10 seconds Scale of 1-10, 10 being almost
fire, and 0 beinglike an ice cube
9.  I will record the data
10.  I will run a pencil against the sandpaper for 10 seconds
11. 
I will record the data
12. 
I will run marbles against the sandpaper for 10 seconds
13. 
I will record the data
14.  I will run WD-40 against the sandpaper for 10 seconds
15.  I will record and submit the data.
 
Data: Design a data table below, using the rows below as your starting point. Make as many columns as 
you need, being sure to label the contents of each column. 
  TIME: Scale: 4
Small Box: 10 seconds
 
 
Pebbles: TIME: Scale: 4
10 seconds
 
String: TIME: Scale: 6
  10 seconds
 
Plastic Bag: TIME: Scale: 8
  10 seconds
Pencil:
  TIME: Scale: 7
10 seconds
 
WD-40: TIME: Scale: 9
  10 seconds
  
 6
PostLab Questions 
 
1. What are some things (extraneous variables) that may have influenced your results?  
The glove that I was wearing and the strength and variance of my body.
 
 
 
2. How could you modify your experiment to make it better? 

  I could use a machine that would record heat and strength and speed of the friction production
 
 
 
3. Were you testing static or kinetic energy? How do you know?  
Kinetic, because it was an object in motion.
 

4.  Describe how you could change your procedure to remove one of the extraneous variable.  

  I would make a machine that records speed, heat, and strength while running the experiment.