Name: _______________________________________________ Class: ____________
Rubber Band Fling Lab

Objectives:
1. Students will be able to create a model that demonstrates both potential and kinetic energy.
2. Students will be able to graph the relationship between potential and kinetic energy.

Materials:
• Rubber band
• Meter stick (or some way to measure)

Procedure:
1. Choose your style of shooting the rubber band:

2. To shoot the rubber band:
 Pull the rubber band back to the desired distance using the ruler as a guide. If you do not have a ruler, a general rule is that the tip of your finger is approximately one inch long.
 Clear a decent area around you where you will be shooting the rubber band. That’s right, make sure your siblings are not in the way.
• Let go of the rubber band and let it fly!
Try to keep the angle of launch the same for every shot to get the most accurate distance.
• Shooting lengths:
 2 inches stretched
 4 inches stretched
 6 inches stretched
 8 inches stretched
3. After each rubber band shot, measure and record the distance the rubber band flew. Each stretch distance should be repeated 3 times to get more accurate results.
4. Once all the data has been collected, teams will find the average distance for each stretched distance and graph their results (stretched distance (x) vs. travelled distance (y)).
5. Create a summary of your results.



Data:


Stretched Length
Distance Flown

Trial #1
Trial #2
Trial #3
Average
2 inches




4 inches




6 inches







Conclusion:
Create a summary paragraph of your lab. You need at least five sentences. You should answer the following questions in your paragraph:
1. What can you tell from your data? In other words, how did the flight distance change as the rubber band was stretched further?
2. Discuss kinetic and potential energy in relation to this lab.