Relationship Between Drop Height and Diameter of Plasticine Sphere Essay

PROBLEM: A student suggest that there is a proportional relationship between height at which a plasticine sphere is dropped and the diameter of the flattened part after dropping. Design an experiment to determine if this suggestion is true or not. AIM:To investigate the relationship between the drop height and the flattened part of a plasticine sphere after being dropped. HYPOTHESIS: As the height of the sphere plasticine increases the diameter increases. VARIABLES: Manipulating: The drop height of the sphere plasticine Responding: The diameter of the flattened part of the sphere. Controlled: The size of the ball, the surface area of the drop height and the material from which the sphere is made. APPARATUS: Sphere plasticine, meter ruler, Vernier caliper, string, marker METHOD: Make a sphere out of plasticine and measure its size using the Vernier caliper to maintain a constant size throughout the experiment. Get a flat and smooth surface area.  Use a meter ruler to measure 60m above the surface area and hold the plasticine to the ruler at the 60m and drop it. Wrap a piece of string around the flattened part of the sphere and use a marker to mark off where the string stops. Measure the length of the string up to where the mark stops using a meter ruler. Divide the length of the string by 3.14 (pi) to get the diameter. Record the drop height and the diameter of the sphere in a table. Roll the plasticine back into a sphere using the measurements from the Vernier caliper. Measure 40m above the surface area using a meter ruler and hold the plasticine to the ruler and drop it from that height. Wrap a piece of string around the flattened part of the sphere and use a marker to mark off where the string stops. Measure the length of the string up to where the mark stops using a meter ruler. Divide the length of the string by 3.14 (pi) to get the diameter. Record the drop height and the diameter of the sphere in a table. Roll the plasticine back into a sphere using the measurements from the Vernier caliper. Measure 20m above the surface area using a meter ruler and hold the plasticine to the ruler and drop it from  that height. Wrap a piece of string around the flattened part of the sphere and use a marker to mark off where the string stops. Measure the length of the string up to where the mark stops using a meter ruler. Divide the length of the string by 3.14 (pi) to get the diameter. Record the drop height and the diameter of the sphere in a table. EXPECTED RESULTS The sphere that has a drop height of 60m should have a larger diameter than the sphere with a drop height of 40m and 20m. The results should be recorded in a table. Height  Diameter DATA ANALYSIS: The height at which the sphere plasticine is dropped and the diameter are directly proportional therefore as the height increases so should the diameter. If the sphere dropped at 60m has a larger diameter than the sphere dropped at 40m or 20m then the hypothesis is accepted. If the sphere dropped at 20m has a larger diameter than the sphere dropped at 40m or 60m then the hypothesis is rejected. SOURCES OF ERRORS / PRECAUTIONS: A source of error is parallax error and a precaution to take to prevent this error is to do readings more than once, record them and find the average. Another source of error is not reading the Vernier scale on the Vernier caliper from the zero mark a precaution to take is to make sure that you start reading the Vernier scale from the zero mark.