**The Effect of Surface Area and Target Material on the Force of Collisions
The purpose of our experiment was to determine what types of materials for targets, and different surface areas of hammers would reduce the force of impact between the hammer and target the most. To perform this, a pendulum system was constructed, with the hammer as the pendulum, and different materials as the target. An accelerometer was attached to the hammer to measure the deceleration during impact, which was then converted into a force. The hammer was pulled back, and then dropped. The force that was given on impact was recorded. Thirty trials for each target and surface area of hammer were performed. To analyze the data, an ANOVA one-way analysis of variance test was performed. The results of this test confirmed that at least 1 of the mean values of the trials was different from the rest, because the P-value was 1.86E-262 which is less than the .05 alpha level. The small surface area hammer and metal target reduced impact the least, and the small surface area hammer and sponge target reduced impact the most. This shows that soft targets reduce impact a lot more than hard targets.
Research Done By:
Eric Tse
Cousino High School
Brian Whitney
Fraser High School
Warren Consolidated Schools