Exercise 1 : Energy conservation of a bouncing ball will do this by In this lab you will be exploring energy conservation during collisions - You surfaces , and by calculating the studying how a rubber ball bounces (' collides different with the ground energy lost ( to sound to friction etc ) from each impact if it was dropped from In the Warm - up exercise you considered high a ball would bounce . For example for a perfect elastic collision with the floor and no air resistance certain eight from a 1 m height it would bounce back up to a height 1 m , and all you were to drop the ball example elastic he , in this of a perfectly mechanical energy of the ball would be conserved height , and the kinetic energy of the system , in collision the ball would bounce back to its initial this case the ball and the floor is the same before and after the collision ( 1.1 ) Assume half of the mechanical energy is lost during a bounce , and fill in the ) as the ball is released from rest , just the moment following chart ( three highlighted cells the leaves the ground before the ball impacts the ground and the moment just after ball Notice that your answers will be using variables . ( 2 marks Kinetic Energy Potential Energy Speed 0 mgh Just - released y = h) Just before impact 1/2 mv = ( write in terms of ( y = 0) g and K = ( write in terms of 0 = ( write in terms of Just after impact variables m and variable ( y = 0 ) Hint : half the energy is lost You will find in the following Exercises that real - life collisions do not conserve all the and they are not perfectly elastic The goal of the following experiments is to mechanical energy of your ball is . You can accomplish this by calculating the determine how elastic the bouncing and from this height maximum height of a bouncy ball ( potential energy ) on multiple bounces ( kinetic energy ) the ball left the surface with Two different experiments are calculate the speed elastic Note that while the ball is the shown in Figure 1.1 below with the first being perfectly are air resistance air zero energy loss we are assuming we ignoring