Tennis Ball Lab Report

1) Procedures

1.   get all materials needed (meter stick, ramp, desk, tennis ball, tape, stopwatch)
2. set up a ramp that can have the ball go off the table
3. measure the distance from the top of the ramp to the end of the table
4. measure the edge of the ramp to the end of the table
5. measure the distacne from the table to the ground
6. start predicting the distance of where the ball will hit.
7. use equations to get your predictions
8. after you get an answer, test to see if your calculations are right.
9. place your meter stick on where you predicted where it will land (you can lay tape under it to mark it also)
10. roll the ball off the lamp
11. see if it will hit where you predicted (ours landed where we predicted)
12. now....be amazed by awesome physics :)

2 and 3)

<--this is the set up

the ball in process of falling.

4) I learned that in order to predict the landing of something, you must first find out all the measurements. I then learned how to plug these measurements into different formulas/equations. The final number would be my prediction of where the tennis ball will fall after falling off the ramp. I learned to see if your prediction is right, you test your calculations. You experiment! Mark off your prediction and see if it will land there. We really didn't have any errors because our calculations were correct, therfore we predicted the landing spot correctly. If we could have miscalculated, then the prediction spot would have been way off. You can use these type of calculations in War, for when you want to drop a bomb in a particular spot. You can find out all of the measurements of spots surrounding the place you want to bomb, and time the fall. Then you can have a pretty accurate prediction of where you will land this bomb. If all of your calculations are correct, then the bomb will hit right on the spot, and our soldiers will have gotten further into winning the war.