Bouncing balls and the physics behind it

Understand various physics concepts related to bouncing balls, why they bounce (or do not bounce as much).

Bouncing balls make kids jump around with joy as they love to bounce brightly-colored, bouncy balls off the floor or of the walls.

These bouncy balls help develop motor skills and eye and hand coordination in children.

Bouncing balls are also great for adults to release stress.

I have seen a lot of adults use these as stress balls, at home and in office. These provide a nice distraction from work and are great for relaxing the senses.

However, you can also use these balls to teach useful science concepts to kids!

Most balls are made of rubber (or plastic). Manufacturers may use different kinds of rubber in order to provide the balls with varied bounce.

So, you can even use these balls to teach kids about Physics.

Science Concepts: Bouncing Balls

There are different kinds of bouncing balls: Tennis ball, ping pong ball, solid rubber balls, bigger sized football, basketball and volleyball.

Not all of these have the same bounce!

The degree of bounce depends on the material of the ball and the surface (they may have different elastic properties), the amount of air in the ball and other factors.

With bouncing balls, you can explain your child various Physics related concepts such as:

• Elasticity is the ability of a material to return to its original shape and size after being deformed by an external force.
• Potential energy is the energy stored in an object due to its position relative to a starting position. Common types of potential energy include gravitational, elastic, magnetic, and electric.
• Kinetic energy is the energy possessed by a body due to its motion.

What happens when you bounce a ball off a surface?

The basic concept is that energy is stored in the ball upon impact and this energy is returned during the bounce.

When you drop a ball on a surface, the elastic properties of the ball (as well as the surface) makes the ball to bounce.

On collision with the surface, the ball compresses and stores potential energy in the form of elastic deformation. This potential energy gets converted into kinetic energy when ball rebounds off the surface.

In a perfectly elastic collision, the ball would keep on bouncing back to its initial position (an infinite number of times).

In a perfectly inelastic collision, the ball would collide with surface and its motion would come to an end, with no bounce.

However, what actually happens is that with every bounce some energy is lost due to factors such as air resistance, friction within the materials, gravitational force, and deformation of the ball and surface.

As a result, the each subsequent bounce becomes shorter and eventually the ball no longer bounces.

Here’s how the various kinds of balls bounce:

• Tennis ball: These use good quality rubber that deform and rebound effectively enabling a nice bounce

• Ping pong ball: Plastic balls are less elastic resulting in shorter bounce (compared to rubber balls).

• Solid rubber balls: These have less flexibility and may not bounce as high compared to hollow rubber balls.

• Size and Weight: Bigger sized balls such as football, basketball and volleyball are larger and can store more energy upon impact which often result in higher bounce.

• Amount of Air in the Ball: More air in the ball makes it rigid and results in higher bounce.

Bouncy balls

Bright colored bouncy balls can be used indoors as well as outdoors, for birthdays and even for family gatherings.

You can even get creative with these colorful balls; you can use these to decorate your fish tank and to decorate other things around the house.

You can even use these to teach little kids to recognize the various colors.

Some of these come with a string attached that can be tied to the wrist; just through the ball and it will recoil back at you, providing you with nice catching practice.

Bouncy balls are available in various sizes; some of these balls, especially the bigger sized ones, are inflatable.

While these bouncy balls are constructed from non-toxic and environmentally friendly material, some of these may emit some chemical odor in the beginning, which usually wears of over time. You can purchase bouncy balls that have no fragrance or chemical odor.

Lava Ball: The Waboba Kava Ball is super bouncy ball with cool colors. Also, it changes colors in the Sun as the UV rays changes the yellow color to red. So, get into the sun and play with this super cool Lava ball.