As the month of February came to a close, we were assigned our third Lab of the year. Similar to the previous experiments, we were instructed to create our own procedure. However, while the first labs focused on the Scientific Method and surface tension, respectively, this one mainly revolved around physics. In this experiment, we were to drop three different balls, tennis ball, baseball and softball, from the same distance, in order to determine whether or not the mass of an object would impact how quickly it would take each to hit the ground. Additionally, we had to conclude how mass plays a role in the amount of force the object has upon hitting the ground. Going into this experiment, our group already had a large amount of background knowledge, due to the many Log Questions regarding …show more content…
Once we calculated our average for all of the balls as well as the overall average, we discovered there was only a .05 difference between the maximum and minimum averages for the balls. Moreover, the range of all of our sixty-three trials was only .39 seconds off, proving that all balls dropped within a little over four tenths of a second of each other. The second part of our hypothesis can be proven with our data as well, because the ball with the greatest mass had the most force when it hit the ground and the one with the smallest mass had the least force. The tennis ball, which weighs 57.2 grams, had a force of 560.56 newtons, a universal unit to measure force. Subsequent in weight to the tennis ball, the baseball weighed 143.3 grams and 1404.34 newtons was its force. The heaviest object in our experiment was the softball, with a weight of 185.3 grams and a force of 1815.94 newtons. Our hypothesis is clearly proven using Newton’s second Law of Motion, force is equal to the mass multiplied by acceleration, justifying the more mass an object has, the more force it will