My partner, Palavi and I conducted an experiment in the rocket lab. We learned a lot about gravitational potential energy and elastic potential energy. Gravitational potential energy is the energy stored in an object as the result of its straight up position or height. The energy is stored as the outcome of the gravitational pull of the Earth for the object. Elastic potential energy is the energy stored in the rubber band as the result of its stretching. For example, when we stretched the rubber band two centimeters, (elastic potential energy), the height that the straw shot in the air was fourteen meters. So to find the gravitational potential energy we used the formula mass x Gravitational acceleration x height. We plugged in the numbers for the formula 2 kilo grams; being the weight of the straw, 9.81; the gravitational acceleration and 14 meters; being the height. Al together the G.P.E was 28 millijoules. The more elastic potential energy you have, the more gravitational potential energy you’ll have. For example, when Palavi and I stretched the rubber band to 3 centimeter, the height was 32.3 meters high and the gravitational potential energy was 64.6 millijoules.
Palavi and I probably measured the height of our rocket wrong. Because, when we stretched the rubber band back to 2 centimeters we got a height of 14 inches. But when we stretched the rubber band back to 3 centimeters we got a height of 32.3 millijoules. Palavi and I most likely measured the height of the rocket wrong. To fix this problem we could start this lab over and accurately measure the height of the rocket once more. Making sure our data is as authentic and realistic as possible. 