Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I need some help with a science project. I am testing sports balls like a basketball, football, hockey puck, soccer ball, golf ball, and tennis ball in warm and cold temperatures. I am testing to see how their temperature affects their performance, like bounciness. If somebody could please help me out, but not give me the answers, that would be amazing! Thank you!

If you need help on heating the balls, I suggest you use a grill, freezer, toaster, or oven. If you need help buying the balls, you could go to Target, Walmart, Big 5 Sporting goods, or whatever sport store you could find. If you want to do the project without experiments, I suggest you do a little research on how temperatures affect whatever your ball is made of. If you area computer geek (no offense), than you could digitally simulate the whole thing. If none of these things is what you mean, than I suggest you switch to a different project. Also, you won't find exactly what your looking for online, so don't waste your time.

Hi ovalskis,

Science Buddies has several projects about measuring bouncing balls, and how the bounce height is affected by changing different variables like air pressure, the surface you drop the ball on, or the initial height. You could modify these procedures so you change the ball's temperature instead:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p037.shtml

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p007.shtml

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p071.shtml

For safety reasons I would not recommend putting a ball in an oven or microwave or near any source of open flame. Some balls might be flammable, and heating them too much could cause them to explode as the air pressure inside rises. However, you can chill a ball by leaving it in the refrigerator or freezer, or use a safer method to heat it like a hair dryer. Depending on where you live and the outdoor temperature, you could also leave the ball outside for a bit and then quickly bring it inside to test.

Hope that helps,

Ben