Tennis Ball vs Racquet Science Fair Projects

Competition

When you enter a science fair project you need to develop a competitive edge. This edge can be a unique angle, a unique topic or an innovative methodology.

Objectives/Goals

This project will find the effect of varied string tension on the coefficient of restitution for tennis ball and racquet collision. The hypothesis is that if the string tension on a tennis racquet is changed, then the coefficient of restitution will be changed in proportion to the increase or decrease in tension.

Methods/Materials

A special test set up was built to repeatedly drop balls into racquets and capture the height of the rebound.A special test set up was built to repeatedly drop balls into racquets and capture the height of the rebound.

Results

Between five different string tensions, the height at which the ball rebounded varied by a small amount. Large measurement variations made data analysis difficult. With further reading, it was found that the coefficient of restitution of a tennis ball is much smaller than the string's coefficient of restitution.

Conclusions/Discussion

This lead to the conclusion that less string tension increases the collision coefficient of restitution and this was verified by experimental results. the hypothesis is accepted, and the coefficient of restitution is marginally affected by an increase or decrease in string tension. 3rd party contributor