Styrofoam+Annihilation


 * Names**: Stephanie & Karina


 * Title**: Styrofoam Annihilation


 * Question**: Which Marble will penetrate furthest into the styrofoam block when launched from 0.1 meters? How does size and mass influence the impact of the marble?


 * Materials**:

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Procedure

1. Determine the mass of each marble 2. Load marble 1 into the apparatus, and launch it at the styrofoam block, from an angle of 5 degress and a distance of 0.1 meters (10 cm). 3. Measure the indent, if any, that the marble made on the styrofoam block. 4. repeat the step for the next 4 marbles 5. Find the density of each marble using the water test (to findthe volume) and the equation (mass/volume)

Data:
 * **marble** || **mass** || **depth** || **density** ||
 * 1 || 2 g || 9 mm || 2 g/mL ||
 * 2 || 6 g || 7 mm || 3 g/mL ||
 * 3 || 4 g || 4.5 mm || 1 g/mL ||
 * 4 || 4 g || 5 mm || 1.33 g/mL ||
 * 5 || 8 g || 3.5 mm || 0.8 g/mL ||

Conclusion:

After conducting the experiment, we found many factors that influence the size of impact that the marble had on the styrofoam. Most importantly, we found that density was a major indicator of depth, this is something we did not consider when we first begun. The relationship between depth and density is linear; the smaller the density, the smaller the impact. This makes sense to us because a large marble with a low density won't have as much impact as a small marble with high density, it is like a beach ball and a bullet, the bullet will obviously make a dent into the styrofoam, while the beach ball-whose surface area is obviously larger- would bounce off. A good illustration of this is the difference between marbles 1 and 5. Marble 1 had a density of 2 g/mL, while marble 5 only had a density of 0.8 g/mL. As a result, marble 1 had a depth of 9 mm into the styrofoam, while marble 5 only travelled a distance of 3.5 mm. We found that the larger the size, generally the impact was smaller. We attributed this perhaps to air resistance, but also because in our experiment, the larger the marble, the smaller the density.

When colliding with the styrofoam, the depth of the perforation indicated the work needed to stop the marble (W=Force x displacement). The faster the velocity of the marble, the larger the impact because the styrofaom needed to do more work to stop the marble.

In conclusion, we found that surface area of the marbles does impact the depth of perferation, because surface area influences volume, which in turn influences density. Furthermore, mass is also a factor of density, which we found has a correlation with the distance traveled into the styrfoam.

THE END