Messy Meatballs

Volume

Watch the following video: Messy Meatballs

1. While watching the video, what are three questions that came to mind?

● How many meatballs does he have to put in the pot of sauce?

● Does he have a sufficient amount of meatballs to lead to overflow?

● How big are the meatballs?

2. Did you wonder if adding too many meatballs will eventually make the pot overflow?

Looking at the pot, how many do you think would result in the overflow? Why?

● I think that given the pot might overflow, but it would take a very large amount of

meatballs to lead to overflow. I think 20 meatballs would result in overflow based on 4cm

of height remaining in the pot and diameter of 15.5cm.

 3. Again, looking at the pot, guess how many meatballs would be safe to add, so that the

sauce won’t spill over. What did you take in to account in making that guess?

● I guess 16 meatballs are safe to add to the pot. I need to know the meatballs volume,

the pots volume, then I could calculate the max capacity of the pot to find exact number.

4. Sketch a visual of the pot, the meatballs, sauce, etc.

Sketch created using Google Slides.

5. What information would you need to know to figure out how many meatballs you can

add to the sauce without it overflowing?

● In order to discover the safe maximum number of meatballs, I need the volume of the

meatballs and the volume of the pot that isn’t filled with sauce. For the meatballs, I need

the diameter (to calculate radius). For the pot, I need the height of the pot or the height

of the pot not filled with sauce and diameter (to calculate radius) of the pot.

6. Here is some more information.

7. What volumes would you need to know? Write out the formulas.

● Volume remaining in pot not filled with sauce and meatballs

Diameter of pot (D) = 15.5cm

Radius of pot = 𝑟 = 𝐷 ÷ 2 = 15. 5 ÷ 2 = 7. 75cm

2
Volume of a Cylinder: 𝑉 = π𝑟 h
𝑟 = 7. 75 𝑐𝑚
ℎ = 4𝑐𝑚
2 3
𝑉 = π(7. 75) 4 = 754. 77𝑐𝑚

● Volume of Meatball:

4 3
Volume of Sphere (or Meatball): 3
π𝑟
𝑟 = 1. 75𝑐𝑚
4 3 3
𝑉 = 3
π(1. 75) = 22. 45𝑐𝑚

8. What would you use for the radius of the meatballs? Why?

● Using calipers, measure diameter of meatballs; then average the diameter, then divide

the average by 2. Radius value required to calculate volume of meatball (sphere).

(3.6+3.5+3.4+3.7+3.5)
Average Diamter of Meatball: 5
= 3. 5𝑐𝑚
Radius of Meatball = 𝑟 = 𝐷 ÷ 2 = 3. 5 ÷ 2 = 1. 75𝑐𝑚

9. How would you find the number of meatballs that would make the sauce begin to spill

over?

3
● I would divide the volume calculated for pot not filled with sauce (𝑉 = 754. 77𝑐𝑚 ), and

3
average volume calculated for meatballs (𝑉 = 22. 45𝑐𝑚 ) to determine the number of

meatballs that would make the sauce overflow. In researching the project, it was

recommended to add 2 additional meatballs because the pot has a lip and surface

tension of the liquid allows the sauce to rise above the edge of the pot before overflow.
 𝑉 𝑜𝑓 𝑃𝑜𝑡 754.77
𝑉 𝑜𝑓 𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑙
= 22.45

10. What is the actual number of meatballs that would make the pot overflow? Show how

you calculated the solution using a formula and with the visual.

𝑉 𝑜𝑓 𝑃𝑜𝑡 754.77
𝑉 𝑜𝑓 𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑙
= 22.45
= 33. 6 + 2 = 35. 6 = 36 Meatballs.