Another interesting fact is the original ball in 1907 had a diameter of just 5 feet but by the time of the last ball, it had grown to having a diameter of 12 feet. That is enough information to calculate the volume of both and determine the percent increase in volume since the first one.
Some other interesting facts associated with the ball is that the original ball in 1907 weighed 700 pounds but in the 1920's it was replaced by a 400 pound iron ball. Then in 1955, it was replaced by a 150 pound aluminum ball which was replaced about 10 years ago by a ball weighing 11,875 pounds. This information opens up to calculating change in precent between the balls. There was a trend of getting lighter but then with the last one, it became so much heavier.
One reason the current ball is so heavy is due to the 2,688 Waterford crystals imported from Ireland and to the 32,385 LED lights covering the ball. Since this has a 12 foot diameter, it is possible to calculate the surface area of the sphere and then use that to calculate the density of the crystals and the lights. In addition, the 32,385 lights can create 16 million color combinations. That is interesting that so few lights can produce so many combinations.
Once the ball has fallen, the city releases 3,000 pounds of of confetti. The 3000 pounds is made up of around 30,000,000 pieces of colored paper. Add into that the fact over a million people attend the event in person and everyone produces something like 48 tons of garbage that takes around 7 hours to clean up using a total of 180 people. These facts provide students a chance to calculate how much trash each person produced.
If you don't feel like using any of this information to create your own activities, there are some out there ready to go. Yummy math has a couple that are quite interesting. One activity that deals specifically with ball itself. The ball is actually a geodesic sphere that is fixed to a frame. The activity goes into more detail about the arrangement Waterford crystals and LED lights on the dome.
The other activity looks at the evolution of the ball itself from the original 5 foot diameter wood/iron one to the current one that is more of a wonder/notice activity. It wouldn't be hard to include a second page with questions that have students calculate percent increases or decreases from ball to ball. If you feel like looking at the amount of work as defined by physics, check out this page which shows the math involved in finding the amount of total work done by the ball.
Now if you like, you can have students take the information from this article published in 2019 and have them create an infographic with all the information or assign specific areas for students to investigate in more detail before creating the infographic using that information.
Due to the virus, this year's celebration will only happen virtually so you can still see it happen from the comfort of your own home. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear. Have a great day.
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