How high can a cold hot or warm tennis ball bounce?

Answer 1

My son and I did this experiment as a science fair project. We put 2 tennis balls in the freezer for 1 hour. We also put 2 tennis balls in heating pad (high setting) for 1 hour. We also used 2 room temperature balls. We dropped the balls from 80" onto a tile floor and measured the height of the bouces with a measuring tape. The results were fairly dramatic. The tennis balls from the freezer bounced an average of 25 inches. The room temperature balls bounced a full 50 inches. The warm balls bounced an average of 55 inches. Obviously there was a significant difference between the bounces of cold and warm tennis balls.