Question: Going down the same ramp, which disk will go the farthest?

A regular disk or a disk with a

balloon attached to it blown up? Why?

Information: Friction is what stops momentum. The less friction, the easier it will be to keep going. If
there was no friction, we would almost never stop if we ran and stopped running-the only thing that
could stop us is the air around us.

Hypothesis: I think that the balloon-disk will go farther because it will provide less friction from air flow
downwards.

Experiment Steps:

1. We are going to get a white board and a box and slant the white board onto the box from the
floor.
2. Get two music disks and leave one of them alone.
3. Use the other one to hot glue a cap onto the disk. (It has to be big enough to fit over the hole of
the disk.) Then, we attached the balloon with a rubber band securing it onto the cap.
4. Now, we did the regular disk first. Roll it down the ramp and measure how far it went.
5. Then, blow up the balloon and secure it to the white board and let go.
6. Measure how far the balloon-disk went.
7. Now, compare the distances and see why which one went farther.
8. Record the results and document it (you can do the average cm. or in. if you want).

Results:

Pictures unavailable. The balloon-disk went 210 centimeters while the regular disk went 21.

Looking at my results, it is clear that my original hypothesis was right. One way I know it is
(wrong or right) is that The balloon disk went farther. I think this happened because the air
in the balloon is going down creating less friction. Another interesting thing that happened
was that when I looked at it at the floor it was like a hovercraft. I think this was because the
balloon caused air to flow downwards creating less friction. In conclusion, it turns out that
the balloon-disk went farther. If I were to do this again, two things I would change would be
to make the ramp a little steeper and to measure in inches instead of centimeters.