Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

To Rick Mars
Dear Mr.Mars I am doing a school project, and my idea for the project is to test which ball would bounce higher an expensive ball or a cheap ball, and I have 3 questions I need to ask you.

Question 1.Have you ever done bleep like this before?
Question 2.Is this project really worth my time?
Question 3.Do you have any tips or ideas for this project?,if so please tell me immediately.

Thank you for your time I hope you read this because I really need this to happen.I thank you for your time.



From:Jonias Sanabria

Jonias Sanabria - The experiment you suggest may be very interesting from the standpoint of 'what makes different balls bounce to variable heights'. While I haven't done anything directly related to this, several times a week I play tennis, and even with brand new sealed balls we always test for the ability of the ball to bounce to appropriate heights. These are often the same brand of tennis ball, and they may bounce a little differently.

The variable you suggest, price of the ball is not a very good selection, as price is more of a marketing decision a manufacturer makes to compete in the marketplace. You might find, for example, that testing 4 different brands of golf balls may prove that the lowest cost ball produces the highest bounce, or just opposite, the highest price ball outperforms the others.

The ability a a ball to bounce has everything to do with it's elasticity. That's the ability of the ball to compress when it hits a surface, and decompress as it bounces. If you do an internet search on the questions 'what makes balls bounce?' you will find several descriptions and even a few science fair experiments on the subject. I think if you read a few of these articles you will better understand how to better construct your experiment, which variables to define and how to document the experiment. Hope this helps, good luck.

Rick Marz