Data Collection and Results

Please refer to my wikispace at this link http://21001sipdata.wikispaces.com/ to view the data collected. This is because i am unable to insert files on blogger. Thank you!

Graph showing the relationship between an 8% concentration of borax solution used to make the ball and the height of rebound of the ball

Figure 1

Graph showing the relationship between 5ml of borax solution used and the height of rebound of the ball.

Figure 2

As can be seen from these two graphs which were taken from my data, my results were sometimes inaccurate. This is mostly due to human error. Figure 1 shows the starting height of the ball to be 0.165m. This is clearly inaccurate because when collecting the data, a long ruler was used to measure the starting height of the ball, 1m. Human error most likely occurred as the time of release of the ball and the starting of the motion sensor were not at exactly the same time, due to delays in the human reaction. Thus, the motion sensor recorded the starting height of the ball after it had already been released, resulting in data whereby the starting height of the ball was inaccurate.

This limitation in human error negatively affected the results when calculating the rebound percentage of the ball based on the recorded starting height and 1st rebound height of the ball. Since the starting heights of the ball were all recorded to be different, the rebound ratios of the ball were very inaccurate and not a good measure of the actual rebound percentage of the ball.

I thus created a few more sets of the polymer balls to measure, so as to obtain more results that were more accurate. The experiment testing how the amount of borax solution used affected the height of rebound of the ball had 3 sets of balls that were tested (2.5ml, 5ml, 7.5ml, 10ml, 12.5ml x 3), while the concentration of borax solution used had 2 sets of balls that were tested (2%, 4%, 6% x 2 + 8%, 10% x 1)

Since the starting heights of the ball were all measured each time using a long ruler, I also assumed the starting heights of all the balls throughout to be of equal height, 1m. This does not make the results inconclusive because the 1st rebound height of the ball is the most important data that needs to be considered and used.

Data that was completely inaccurate was eliminated, but others that had inaccurate starting heights but accurate rebound heights were still used. I took the average of the rebound heights of the accurate graphs used, then plotting a graph showing the relationship between either the amount of borax solution used and the height of rebound of the ball or the concentration of borax solution used and the height of rebound of the ball. This enabled the data to be more consistent and accurate.