Bouncy Balls

Conclusion After I had finished my testing I was surprised on how the results had turned out. I thought that a tennis ball would be the highest bounce. The ball that had bounced the highest, was the basketball which had bounced the highest at 23.3 inches. The basketball bounced, because of the pressurized air inside of it. The first thing that affects a basketball is the gravity which makes it pull down towards the ground.

I have played sports since I was four. It has amused me how balls react when they are bounced. Wouldn't you think that a heavy ball would just drop and not bounce back and a small ball to do the opposite. I wanted to test and see which ball bounces the best and why. For my hypothesis I think that a tennis ball would bounce the highest. I believe this because they are made to bounce, and they do not weigh as much as other balls.

I had started my experiment by looking for the material and objects I needed, such as a basketball, soccer ball, baseball, tennis ball, marble, tape, pencil, and a yard stick. I first marked tape on the ground to have the ball drop in the same location. Afterwards I dropped each ball from three feet to make the experiment more accurate. I had then repeated that several more times.

After I had completed all my data, I got the average bounce for each object. For the baseball it bounced 7.8 inches. The next average was the tennis ball that bounced at 21.1 inches. Then the next average was the marble at 4.8 inches. The basketball bounced at 23.3 inches. Lastly I found out the average of a soccer ball to be 21.8 inches. This had shown me that the basketball bounced the highest at an average of 23.3 inches and the marble was the lowest bounce at only 4.8 inches.

After I had finished the project I was surprised on what the results turned out to be because I thought that a tennis ball would have been the highest bounce. A way I could have made the experiment more fair was if I had seen how much each object weighed. As you can see a basketball can bounce higher than another ball, because of the material it is made from.