Here is your chance to find out if you can put everything we've learned so far together.

Determine how to analyze the apparatus properly and tell me how far back to pull the spring so that , when released, it will go into the box. I'll give you free of charge that you may ignore the mass of the spring, (which means the gravitational potential energy due to height is nominal compared to the spring potential ) and the friction of the rod on the spring.

The Plan: You are the boss with the brains, I am the flunky. You tell me what measurements you need that will enable you to calculate the distance the spring must be stretched in order to give it enough uumph to make it into the box when released. Pretend this is like a shuttle launch. Each launch costs 60 Billion Dollars, and we can't afford to try it a half a dozen times until we get it right by trial and error.

Remember the data sheet I made up for you for Experiment 4? You must make up a data sheet for this lab like that one including equations, so that, as soon as you have the values , you can simply put them into the formulas and they will produce the required numbers. How many parts must this lab have?

Part I. Finding the Spring Stiffness Constant ks

xo= ____________

Graph F vx D and find slope of line of best fit, which will be ks.

Part II. Find the initial velocity vo of the spring as it leaves the rod (in terms of ks , mass of spring ms, gravity g, and distance stretched, Ds).

ms = ______________

Energy stored in the spring = initial kinetic energy

Part III. Do the projectile motion problem to find the distance Ds required to stretch the spring (in terms of ms , ks g, a, b, c, yo and x1 ).

a = ________ b = ___________ c = ___________ yo = __________ x1 = __________