Objectives

• Record the successive maximum heights for a bouncing ball.
• Model the bounce height data with an exponential function.

Procedure

Bounce Back

Groups of three students used a motion detector to collect the height of a bouncing ball for 5 seconds.

Analysis

An example of one group’s data collection.

Students determined the maximum height of five successive bounces.  They put the data in a List & Spreadsheets Page.

The data for the first and fourth bounce was used to mathematically determine an exponential model that would fit the data.  They plotted their data and model on a Data & Statistics Page.

Then they had the calculator find the exponential regression for their data.

Results

Most groups found their model and the exponential regression to be very similar.