Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I recently picked one of your science project ideas as a basis for my science project, and I cant figure out what the constants are. The procedures are: 1. Find a helper, gather your supplies and go outside to do this experiment. You will want a place with a lot of clearance that has a cement or hard-caped surface that you can draw on with chalk. Your partner will draw circles around where the flying rubber bands land.

2. You stand on one side of the space, and have your partner stand on the other side.

3. With your piece of chalk draw a line in front of your toes. This is where you will line your feet up when you shoot your rubber bands. This is also where you will begin measuring the distances your rubber bands have gone.

4. Choose a few different lengths along your ruler where you will pull your rubber band back to. They should be at regular intervals along the ruler.

5. Starting with your first length. Shoot a rubber band by hooking it on the front edge of the ruler, then pulling back to your first length on the ruler and then letting go. Remember the angle and height you hold the ruler, because you will need to keep it the same for each rubber band launch.

6. Have your partner draw a circle where that rubber band landed.

7. Measure the distance from your line to the spot your partner just marked and record the distance.

8. You will launch rubber bands from each length 10 times, so that you can average the data to get better results. This means that you will need to repeat steps 6-8 nine more times before moving on to the next length. Then you will repeat the procedure 10 times for each of the other lengths you have chosen.

9. Create a chart that shows the distance you recorded for each length and the average and then make a graph by placing a scale of stretch length in inches on the bottom (x-axis) and a scale of launch distance (in.) on the left side (y-axis). Plot a dot for each data point. If it looks like a line, draw a line of best fit through your data.

10. Analyze your data and make your conclusions.

And my question is: How does the potential energy in a rubber band relate to the kinetic energy after the rubber band is released and how far it goes?

I found my constants and variables, but I cant find my contol group. PLEASE HELP! My research paper template requires me to have a control group so i need some help ASAP! PLEASE HELP!

You asked 2 quiestions:

1) How does the potential energy in a rubber band relate to the kinetic energy after the rubber band is released and how far it goes?
2) What is my control group?

The potential energy in the rubber band is proportional to how far you stretch it before releasing it. The kinetic energy is proportional to how far it flies. So if you create a graph with potential energy, that is distance pulled back, along the X-axis, and kinetic energy, that is distance traveled, on the Y-axis, you will be able to show how the potential energy relates to the kinetic energy.

Not all experiments have a control group. The need for a control group depends on your hypothesis. If you hypothesis is that something changes in a certain way when you do something to it, then you would need a control group. You would run the same set of experiments on the thing that you changed and on an identical thing you did not change. The thing that is not changed is in the control group.

In the case of this experiment, you are not changing anything, simply determining the relationship between potential and kinetic energy. One way to run the experiment to include a control group would be to state your hypothesis in a manner similar to: "Number 0 size rubber bands have more kinetic energy per inch of stretch than Number 1 size rubber bands." Then the Number 1 size would be your control group and the Number 0 size would be your experimental group, but you would run the same experiment on both sets of rubber bands.

I hope this helps.

Keep up the good work, and have fun!