Olive oil |
vegetable oil |
spray starch |
detergent |
water |
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Tackiness was increased by quite a lot, but not as much as expected.
The power was reduced slightly, giving a result a bit under average. Having an average hardness gave a slightly springy effect, allowing the rubber to keep its power, but enough to keep a relatively high contact area, giving tremendous spin. |
Again, tackiness played a large part of the results. The rubber was softened, decreasing power. The tackiness was slightly less than the olive oil, contrary to the hypothesis.
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The spray starch hardened the rubber a fair bit, and reduced tackiness to an amazing degree. It was far from an antispin effect, as the rubber was too hard. The hardness of the rubber reduced contact area, reducing spin.
Low tackiness, hard and smooth rubber gave this high power, but low spin. |
The detergent certainly reduced power considerably, but, with the soft rubber and low-moderate tackiness it still gained some spin. Not a lot, but still some.
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Like the olive oil, the water gave quite a springy effect, increasing power. This also gave more contact area, increasing spin. The rubber was springier, meaning the rubber was slightly harder than with the olive oil. That gave slightly less surface area, not giving as much spin. The water also cleaned out dust, increasing tackiness, but again, the olive oil had more tackiness.
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hot air |
saliva |
non-stick cooking spray |
silicon spray |
breath |
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The hypothesis for power was way out. It was expected that the rubber would expand, making it a bit 'slack', or softer, which would reduce power. Instead, the second possibility was the correct one. The hot air, in fact dried out the rubber and hardened it. This significantly reduced the contact area, reducing spin. There was a relatively low amount of tackiness.
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The saliva hardened the rubber enough to give it just above average power. It also increased tackiness enough to make up for the lack of contact area, and add a little bit of spin on top of that, too.
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This was a truly surprising result. While it was expected that it would significantly reduce spin, it actually gained spin noticeably. The cooking spray did harden the rubber, increasing power at the cost of spin, but in fact made the rubber tacky. This is most likely because, although the rubber was tacky before the cooking spray dried, it was absorbed, but acted like the water and cleaned the dust out.
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This gave a springy effect, increasing power, contrary to the hypothesis. However, it very much had an antispin effect. Although springy, it felt soft and wrapped around the ball. With that and the low tackiness, it reduced the spin greatly.
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Yet again, the rubber became springy, increasing power. The humidity of the breath increased tackiness, giving more spin. It removed the dust, which increased tackiness, like the saliva. The hot air dried the racket out, giving more power. However, the humidity increased springiness/elasticity.
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