Question

The robot launches a tennis ball from a height of 4 ft. The ball reaches a maximum height of 40 ft before it begins to fall. It lands on the ground 160 ft from the robot. Mei models this situation with a quadratic function. What is a zero of this function?

Answer 1

The zero of the quadratic function in this situation represents the time at which the ball hits the ground.

Step-by-step explanation:

The zero of the quadratic function in this situation represents the time at which the ball hits the ground. The zero occurs when the height of the ball is equal to 0. Since the ball was launched from a height of 4 ft and lands on the ground 160 ft away, we can use the quadratic equation to find the zero.

The quadratic equation can be written as h(t) = -16t^2 + vt + h0, where h(t) represents the height of the ball, t represents time, v represents the initial velocity, and h0 represents the initial height.

Plugging in the values from the question, we get 0 = -16t^2 + vt + 4. Solving this equation, we find that the zero of the function is t = 0.25s and t = 10s.