Energy lab · bouncing

Drop height vs bounce height

Drop height60 cm

Ball height60.0 cm

First bounce—

StageReady

0 cm on the floor · heights read to the bottom of the ball · only the first bounce is measured

Pick a drop height, then let go. Watch for the top of the first bounce — it goes by fast.

Drop height

The ball is released from rest, so it starts with no speed of its own. Everything it arrives with came from the height.

Slow motion at quarter speed. A real first bounce is over in well under a second. Show the best-fit line and the coefficient it gives Add measurement error, since catching the peak by eye is the hard part Let the ball lose a little bounce at higher impact speeds, like real latex-cored balls

Trials

First bounce height for each drop height
#	Drop (cm)	Bounce (cm)	Bounce/Drop

Bounce height vs drop height

Your trials A perfect bounce, back to the same height

How to use this simulation

Pick a drop height from the buttons in the Drop height panel. The ball is always released from rest at that height.
Press Drop the ball and watch it fall, hit the floor, and bounce. Watch closely for the top of the first bounce — it goes by fast, which is why Slow motion is on by default.
Heights are read to the bottom of the ball, matching where you'd line it up against a real meter stick. A strip of tape is left on the stick marking the top of every first bounce.
The height-vs-time chart beside the apparatus traces the drop, the impact, and the bounce so you can see the whole motion at once.
Each drop is saved as a row in the Trials table and a point on the Bounce height vs drop height graph, so you can compare heights.
Turn on Show the best-fit line to see the line through your data and the slope it gives, Add measurement error so repeated drops don't land on the exact same number, or the realism switch to let the ball lose a little bounce at higher speeds.
Press Reset to get ready for another drop, Clear trials to wipe the table and graph, or Copy data to copy your results for a spreadsheet.