Velocity Lab

When beginning this lab, I quickly hypothesized that the golf ball would fall much faster because of not only its much higher weight, but also it was engineered to be as aerodynamic as possible, allowing it to fall much quicker. I believe the results support this with no doubt, with the manual recording and the technological affirmed my belief.

Using tech

Manual

Obviously, the velocity increased the height, and the golf ball had a much higher velocity. The mass of the golf ball was approximately 45 grams, while the ping pong ball was only 2.5! However, I am confused why on the Vernier measurement that one measurement was a multiple for each height (e.g. 4.9, 9.8, 14.7), and the other was exponential (3.5, 5.5, 11). I believe this was just human error, and not the machine's fault. However, I do believe that the machine made quite inaccurate measurements, considering the difference between the human eye's measurement. In my opinion, I believe that the human eye is able to get a very general gist in these types of measurements; however, a properly calibrated motion sensor can far outdo the human eye. I believe there was extreme error due to our lack of experience of using this equipment.

However, besides the tech issues and natural human error, this project got its point across. If you dropped two objects of the same mass and shape, but differing weights, the heavier would achieve a higher velocity. However, I feel a baseball and tennis ball would be more appropriate, due to their similar principles of aerodynamics, while the golf ball is specifically built to fly the farthest with the least amount of force, while a ping pong ball exists just to not waver.