Bounce Around

WHAT TO DO

There are two different balls in the box, they may look the same but they are very different. Bounce each ball on the different materials in the box and take mental notes of what happens! Do the balls bounce on some materials and not others?

HOW IT WORKS

One ball does not bounce at all on wood, we will call this the ≥sad ball≤. The sad ball does not bounce on wood because when it falls it flattens (although you can not see it flatten, picture the ball having a dent in it where it fell) and does not return to its original shape. All of the energy from the fall is turned into heat and none of it is used to return the ball to its original shape. The other ball however, bounces quite well off the wood. We will call this the ≥happy ball.≤ It uses almost all of the energy from the fall to return itself back to its original shape and therefore bounces back almost as high as it was dropped.

On the spandex trampoline we see the sad ball bounce! This happens because the spandex has a give to it and does not flatten the sad ball as much. Also, the spandex, as you can see, goes back to its original shape and throws the sad ball back up! The same thing happens with the other materials where the sad ball is able to bounce, it is just not as easy to see.