Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi! I was able to do the experiment, but only with a phone with phyphox app and a spring. I did not add any mass so as to graph the slope that is the spring constant. Is there any other measurement that I can compute with doing only five trials of the same mass (which is the smartphone)

Here are the period results which I computed by computing the difference of two crests.
0.6047
0.5685
0.5464
0.5780
0.5705

pastelayf,

Thank you for your question. It sounds like you calculated the spring constant and the mass of the phone already. Its unclear what other measurements you collected during the experiment. Assuming you measured the maximum displacement (max distance the spring was stretched or compressed from equilibrium) achieved during the experiment, you can calculate the maximum velocity achieved by the mass when it is pulled back toward equilibrium, using the relationship between Potential and Kinetic Energy (PE+KE=0) you can derive the following for your spring-mass system:
vmax=[(4kd^2)/m]^(1/2)

Also, if left to move freely (i.e. not disturbed after being let loose) a spring-mass system will loose energy on each oscillation (i.e. the mass will not displacement quite as far on subsequent revs as it did previously) thereby eventually the whole system will dampen out and return to its preferred equilibrium state. If the max displacement from equilibrium after each oscillation is known then you can calculate the Energy (in joules) lost at each oscillation rev using:
W=1/2k(dn^2-dn-1^2)

Hope this helps.

~ TheBorg