Hypothesis: Height will raise an object's velocity because it will have more time to accelerate.
The first time we did the experiment, we used a standard iPod timer and a meter stick.
The results will be displayed in the chart below. Note that the mass of the golf ball was 45.66 grams, while the ping-pong ball's mass was 2.50.
Looking at the highest velocity for each, the highest for the ping-pong ball was 3.22 m/s, while the highest for the golf ball was 3.81 m/s. So far, the hypothesis is unsupported.
The second time, we used a Vernier motion sensor, so we were able to determine the ball's exact velocity using Logger Lite.
The following information comes from the ping-pong ball's results:
The following information comes from the golf ball's results:
Looking at the highest velocity for each, the ping-pong ball's highest overall was 13.802, while the golf ball's was 12.235. The hypothesis for this experiment was supported.
Considering the sensor is a lot more accurate than old-fashioned measuring and timing, the sensor's measures should be counted towards the conclusion. However, the "old-fashioned" measures will still be taken into consideration.
Conclusion: The hypothesis was, when measured with a more accurate device, supported. However, the drop was very quick, so the sensor didn't have time to adjust to a constant velocity very well. Even so, the highest velocity measured for the ping-pong ball-- which was 2.50 grams and thus lighter, was 13.802 m/s, which was higher than the velocity for the golf ball-- 45.66 grams-- which was 12.235 m/s. Through this experiment, the lab group learned that it was important to stay focused at all times in an experiment, especially a fast-paced experiment like the one just performed. If you get distracted or zone out, you might miss something important, even though our group didn't miss a thing. It's important in real life to stay focused in general-- if you don't, you might miss something important, just like in an experiment! There weren't really any flaws in this experiment, but we would have had more accurate measures should we somehow have been able to drop from greater heights.
