Introduction: Energy
Energy – in a physics sense – is one of the most strange concepts you’ll come across. It’s also one of the most useful.
Energy is a quantity that describes the capacity of something to “do work”. Energy can be divided into “kinetic” and “potential”. Kinetic energy is related to movement and potential is related to the “potential” of an object to have movement. However, these two types of energy can come in many forms, and can be converted from kinetic to potential, and back again. In this lab, you will be exploring how potential energy can be converted into kinetic energy, and how total energy in a system can be “lost”.
In Exercise 1, you will describe how gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy mathematically. You will need to think about how parameters like speed, height, and mass relate to kinetic and potential energy. This will help you make predictions about the experiments to follow.
Exercise 2 has you performing your experiment; dropping a ball and recording the time between bounces.
In Exercise 3, you will analyze the data collected in your Experiment graphically. You will observe how energy is converted between potential and kinetic, as well as observe the loss of energy between bounces.
Finally, in Exercise 4 you will calculate your system’s coefficient of restitution (don’t worry, this is a new term, we will teach it!).
Learning Objectives
Set yourself the following learning outcomes for this lab:
By the end of this lab, I will be able to
- Understand how gravitational potential energy can be converted to kinetic energy and vice versa.
- Write mathematical expressions to describe the conversion of energy in a system.
- Create and use an audio track to determine the time between bounces and relate this to conservation of energy.
- Calculate the coefficient of restitution for a collision.
But before any of that, you’ll want to get yourself warmed up!
