Connor+B

__//**MECHANICAL ENERGY! **//__ = = =RESEARCH IT =

There are two types of energy. There is kinetic energy; which involves an action or something happening. Like if a ball was flying it would be kinetic energy. The other type of energy is potential energy. Potential energy states that and object has a chance of moving but at the time isn't. An of potential energy would be a cup sitting on the edge of a table. As well as the two types of energy there are also 5 forms of energy. Electromagnetic, Nuclear, Thermal, Chemical energy, and lastly Mechanical energy. The type of energy that was chosen for research is Mechanical energy. Mechanical energy is the energy associated with the motion or position of large objects. Large objects are just objects that are able to be seen from a human eye. An example of a large object would be a spoon. If I were to be throwing a football there would be Mechanical energy. Mechanical energy is also known as motion energy. Mechanical energy can be used as potential and kinetic energy. Potential and Mechanical energy could be a stretched but not shot rubber band. Then if the rubber band was shot it would have Kinetic and Mechanical energy because it has motion and its a large object.

=APPLY IT =

One application of mechanical energy is a bouncy ball. A bouncy ball has motion when it is bounced and it is a large object that can clearly be seen by the human eye. It is such a great example because both of the types of energy are shown very clearly with the bouncy ball. When the ball is being held above a table it has potential energy. This is potential energy because if it was dropped it would fall and hit the table. This is caused by gravity because it would be pulling it down until another force can match the force of gravity which will eventually be met by the table. When the ball is in the midst of bouncing it has kinetic energy because it has motion which. Mechanical energy is shown in a great way through a bouncy ball. There are many other applications of mechanical energy such as a bow-and-arrow but a bouncy ball is one of the most clear and thorough.

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=EXPERIMENT =

My experiment is supposed to test whether or not the shape affects how much air resistance is on the object. My method is to get one meter stick and tape it up to the counter and drop the object from one meter in the air and then time how long it took the object to hit the ground. Then the information was recorded and logged on to a chart. The results that were taken were that the sphere was the quickest to get to the ground by getting there in .33 seconds. The slowest object was the flat object. It took .59 seconds to reach the ground. The cylinder took exactly half a second to reach the ground while the ring took .43 seconds. I think the ring was faster because it had less air resistance because the ring has an opening in the middle to let air go through much faster. The square was the in the middle of all of the shapes with a time recorded at .45 seconds. I think this was in the middle because it only has a little bit of a flat part for the air resistance to stop the shape of the object. The materials that were used were a piece of silly putty and a meter stick.