Bouncing ball experiment...?

Question

I need some guidance for this experiment.

Here's the link to the experiment*:
http://www.csulb.edu/~gpickett/ps112/the...

Ok, now I don't know how I'm supposed to graph the last graph on page 5A-8. What formula am I supposed to use? How do I get the points that I'm supposed to graph? I was told to break up the ball's bounce height (the 1st graph on pg. 5A-8) into increments, but I'm confused. Any insights, or anything really, that anyone can give me, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

*Oh, and I'm not supposed to actually do the experiment and bounce a ball. I'm supposed to use the graphs given.

Sorry, try this link:

http://www.csulb.edu/~gpickett/PS112/thexp5A.pdf

Answer 1

You need to graph the velocity right?

so the top graph shows position of the ball, at each sampling instant, a little triangle is drawn. Velocity is dx/dt i.e. the distance between each triangle. It seems there are 20 samples per second, so that dt = 1/20 s

So the instant velocity will be 20 x (dist measured between triangles)

To take the distance choose a fixed point on the triangle, say the top vertex, and measure distance between top vertices.

Answer 2

One problem is that you didn't get any information about the behaviour on large length scales, i.e. what happens when you drop the ball from a height, h >> r, the radius of the ball. What do you think might happen in this limit? What does this behaviour say about the validity of the equation you fitted to your data at large h?

Answer 3

You might be able to get an answer if your link worked.