Conservation of Energy Lab
By: Julia Banning, Megan Nanovic, and Taya Wentz
1/04/16
Purpose:
In this lab, the goal is to verify the Law of Conservation of Energy by conduction experiments and making measurements. |
Theory:
The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy remains the same in an isolated system and it cannot be created nor destroyed, only changed from one state to another. The equation displayed here will be utilized to find the velocity of the cart with the weight on it. |
Experimental Technique:
Data and Analysis:
Conclusion:
In this lab, the amount of force and velocity of a cart that was attached to the red spring was discovered upon. For part one of the experiment, as the force increased, so did the amount of compression in the spring. For part two, the measured and calculated velocity compared relatively well, considering the small percent difference of 1.99%. Sources of error could have been the release of the string to allow the cart to be sprung off. If the release was shaky, the velocity could have been slightly altered. Also, if the maximum compression was not truly the maximum compression of the red spring, then the results could be different. Overall, this experiment went quite well since the results were relatively true to each other.
References:
Bowman, D. LAHS Physics Weebly. Conservation of Energy Lab. lahs.physics.weebly.com. 2015.
Giancoli, D. Physics, 5th Edition. Chapter 6.