Elastic Potential Energy Experiment

Introduction:
Elastic potential energy is energy that is stored in an elastic object which results into distortion of an elastically object such as a elastic band pulling back or a spring being stretched. In this experiment, we will be able to observe how kinetic energy transforms into elastic potential energy. We pull back the elastic which is kinetic energy and when we let go of the elastic, it transforms into elastic potential energy. After that, the elastic potential energy from the elastic band will transform into kinetic energy, pushing the tub. Furthermore, after that has happened, the energy will then transform into thermal and sound energy which is produced from the tub. In this experiment, there are several factors that can affect

Fair Testing:
This experiment will be a fair test as we will control our control variable at our best of our ability.
The experiment will be fair as the mass inside the tub will remain the same throughout the whole experiment. This is because if the mass changes, there will be a larger amount of gravitational force acting on the tub which will affect the displacement of the tub.
Furthermore, the surface that the tub will be travelling on will remain the same throughout the whole experiment as changing the surfaces will affect the results due to friction, some surfaces may have more friction than others, which is why we will be using the same surface every time we conduct a trial to prevent errors. In addition, the elastic band will also remain the same throughout the experiment as different elastic bands have different lengths and elastic power and if we change the elastic band every time, it may affect the displacement of the tub.

Safety Precaution:
1.Put bags under the table so when we move around, people will not

This is because if we pull back the elastic band, we are giving the elastic band more elastic potential energy. Consequently, this will lead to larger amounts of kinetic energy transformed from elastic potential energy to kinetic energy when we desert the elastic band which will most likely lead to an increase of the distance travelled of the tub.After having finished conducted the experiment, we can see that according to the graph, when we increase the distance of the pull-back force of the elastic band, the tub travels farther. When the distance of the elastic band is at 5cm, the displacement of the tub has an average of 25.2 cm while when the distance of the pull-back of the elastic band is increased by 5cm to 10cm, the displacement of the tub increases to 63.1 cm. As we can see, the farther the elastic band is pulled back, the further the tub travels, proving my hypothesis correct. Furthermore, I have also found a pattern/trend in the graph, the graph has a steep slope only increasing due to the fact that the distance of the elastic band is also increased. The farther the distance of the elastic band, the larger the displacement of the tub will be. The reason behind this is that the longer the distance of the pull-back of the elastic band, the farther the tub will travel is because the farther the pull-back of