Creating Craters

Making craters by dropping a glass ball into

sand
TURNER 6.12 ES

Acknolegements

Thank you to
My Mom
Zade, My Brother
My Dad
Sophia (my neighbor)
And Stan Lee, for making Age of Ultron, which gave me
the idea for this project

Table of Contents
Title

Ackno Table
Abstra
wledge of
ct
ments Conten
ts

Slide 1

Slide 2

Slide 3

Slide 4

Resear
ch

Hypot
hesis

Materi Result
als and s
Proced
ure

Conclu Refren
sion
ces

Abstract
In this experiment I tested dropping a glass ball from different heights into sand
and measuring the depth of the crater. I did this experiment because I was
interested in the floating city in the age of Ultron movie, the island was supposed
to be a meteorite and make a huge crater. In this experiment the glass ball was
the city and the sand was the earth. I wanted to see how the height of the
meteorite affects the depth of the crater. I found out that the height does not
affect the depth very much, because the averages were very close.44cm: 0.84
55cm: 0.865 66cm: 0.81. My hypothesis is that the height of the drop would be
related to the depth so the highest height according to my hypothesis would be
the deepest, but my hypothesis was proven wrong. The purpose of this
experiment is for architects to be able to know if an elevated platform were to
drop would it hit a pipe or something important.

Research

My independent variable is the height of a falling sphere and the amount of energy it gains while falling.
What I just described is called Gravitational Potential Energy. The formula for it is U=mgh. U means the
joules it has, m is the mass of the falling object, h is the height above surface, and g is the surfaces value of
gravity. That means the amount of joules made by an eight pound (3.62874 kilogram) metal sphere dropped
from six inch (15.24 cm) platform, with the gravity at 9.8, would be 5.4234875444839865 joules. Joules are
equal to the work done when a force of one newton acts over a distance of one meter. So the crater would be
significantly smaller than one made by 10 joules of power. Unfortunately, I couldnt find who discovered
Gravitational Potential energy. Now, onto the dependent variable.
The dependent variable is the circumference of the crater made. Circumference is the perimeter of a
circle. The formula for circumference is c=d. C is the circumference and d is the diameter, or length across
the circle. For example, if a circle was ten cm across, then the circumference would be about 31.5 cm.
Archimedes discovered the formula for circumference. He wrote it as r2=(1/2)r(2r) but simplified it is
c=d or c=r2(r2=d). So thats circumference.
The controls are pretty easy to identify. One of the most important controls is the height of the sphere.
Another important control is the type of ground. If I tested a drop on dirt and a drop on sand, would be
different sizes because of how fluffy or compact the ground would be. And finally, the most important control
is the way I measure the dependent variable. If I measured depth on one test and circumference on the other,
the data would get messed up. And those are the controls.

Hypothisis
If I drop a glass ball into sand from different
heights, then the highest height will make
the deepest crater, because of the law of
Gravitational Potential Energy, which
means, the higher it is when it fell, the
higher the potential energy released on
impact.

Materials

Glass ball=1 lb. 3/8 oz.

5 lbs. of packed sand
21 - 21 cm plastic containter
5 squirts of water to moisten the sand
Scale
Ruler
Tape measure

Procedure

1. Collect the materials above

2. Fill the Tupperware container to half way
3. Measure the 40 cm
4. Align the glass sphere with the 40 cm mark
5. Drop the sphere into the sand
6. Measure the bottom of the crater to the bottom of the container
7. Record data
8. Flatten the sand
9. Repeat steps 3-8 20 times
10. Calculate the mean
11. repeat 3-10 with 55 cm and 66 cm as the height

Table

Graph

Conclusion
In conclusion, my hypothesis has been proven wrong. That
is because the averages are to close but it is still a worthy
topic.

References
https://html"Rules for All Projects."
Student Science
. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Aug. 2015. <https:student.soc!etforsc!

ence.orgrules#$ll#projects%2-f.scribdassets.com/651si6jl4w4nf0nx/images/28a2e2753fa.png
N/A, N. (1990, June 25). Gravitational Potential Energy. Retrieved November 5,
2015, from http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/gpot.html

N/A, N. (2000, July 31). Understanding the Diameter and Radius of a Circle.
Retrieved November 5, 2015, from
http://www.studyzone.org/mtestprep/math8/e/diamradcircle6l.cfm