Sports + Engineering = Great Fun! Sports engineering focuses on designing, developing, and testing sports equipment, such as balls. When a ball collides with something hard, its shape alters. But if the material used to make the ball is elastic, the ball will return to its original shape, causing it to bounce. Some balls, like basketballs, are very bouncy, and some, like baseballs, hardly bounce at all. Explore sports equipment engineering in this SciGirls activity challenging students to design a super bouncy ball out of a balloon.