Starting heights
How is the distance travelled affected by the starting height of the ball?
Hypothesis
My hypothesis is that a ball starting at a higher height will travel farther than a ball at a lower height. Since the highest starting height possible is 120 meters, and the lowest starting height possible is 0 meters, I predict that the ball starting at 120 meters will land the farthest from its starting position and the ball starting at 0 meters will land the nearest to its starting position.
Procedure
Step One: Go to http://www.physicsclassroom.com/PhysicsClassroom/media/interactive/ProjectileSimulator/index.html
Step Two: Set the height of the ball to 0 m. Set the speed to 60 m/s. Set the angle to 45 degrees.
Step Three: Launch ball and measure the x-displacement.
Step Four: Reset the ball. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the same speed and angle, but the following heights: 30 meters, 60 meters, 90 meters, 120 meters.
Step Two: Set the height of the ball to 0 m. Set the speed to 60 m/s. Set the angle to 45 degrees.
Step Three: Launch ball and measure the x-displacement.
Step Four: Reset the ball. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the same speed and angle, but the following heights: 30 meters, 60 meters, 90 meters, 120 meters.
Data Table
Results
The data table shows that the x-displacement (how far the ball moved horizontally) changed with the starting heights. As the starting height increases, the x-displacement increases as well. It's worth noting that the starting height would increase by 30 meters each time, but the x-displacement did not increase at a constant rate, ranging from 27.89 increase to a 20.51 increase.
Conclusion
The hypothesis was proven correct. This teaches us that the higher the starting height of an object, the farther the object will travel if the angle and the speed of the object is the same.