Experiment 1

In this experiment you will study the characteristics of a plastic unconventional spring which is
generally used in spiral binding of the notebooks.

Creating the setup

To design your own setup, you will need a spring of diameter around 2cm and length around 10-
15cm. In addition, you will require some identical weights like coins of Rs. 10 or of Rs. 5 and a 30cm
scale. Take the mass of one coin as the unit of mass and call it “1 coin-mass”.

Make some arrangement to hang the spring from one end. Make a pan using materials at home and
hang it from the spring. The balance will be used to load the spring with the known weights. Fix a
scale vertically near the spring. Make a pointer and stick it on your spring system such that you can
measure the extension in the spring on the scale.

Part-A

In this part you must measure the extension in the spring as you change the mass on the pan.
Increase the number of coins in the pan one at a time and every time note the position of the
pointer. Now take out the coins one by one and again note the position of the pointer (30-40 second
video while you are taking a reading)

Plot the extension versus mass graph as you increase the mass. Use the unit coin-mass for mass.
What is the shape of the graph? Do a curve fitting on the graph and find the average value of the
spring constant k using this graph.

Also plot the extension versus mass graph as you decrease the mass. What is the shape of the graph?
Again, find the average value of the spring constant k using the graph.

Do the obtained values of k differ in the above two cases? If yes, explain.

Part-B

Now oscillate the spring and note the time of oscillations to find the time-period T of the spring for a
certain Mass on the pan. Repeat the same for some more masses. (10-15 second Video for one value
of mass needed).

Plot the T versus m graph. What is the shape of the graph? Change the variables involving T and m to
obtain a graph close to a straight line. Find the effective value of the spring constant k from the
graph. How does it compare with the value of k obtained in Part A?

Part-C

In this part you must oscillate the spring for some mass which you choose and measure its amplitude
at equal intervals. For this, you will have to make a slow-motion video of the oscillations and then
read the amplitude of the oscillations with the help of your slow video. (10-15 second video
needed)

The oscillations will die down with time. If the force of damping is proportional to the velocity (F = -
bv), the amplitude will vary with time according to the equation

A(t)= A𝑒 −𝛽𝑡 ------------- (i)

𝑏
where β =
2𝑚
Plot the Amplitude(A) versus time(t) graph for the chosen Mass. Also plot log A versus t graph and
find the value of β from the graph.

Extra exploration:

Extra exploration is to think beyond what you are asked to do in this write up. If you think of doing
such new things and do it, there is a separate credit for it in the evaluation scheme. One such extra
exploration can be to oscillate the spring mass inside water and measure its damping.

Expectations:

1. A photograph of the complete experimental setup.

2. Also share the images(Jpg file) and videos(mp4 files) for the points mentioned in Part-A, B
and C
3. Neatly tabulated observations, graphs, and calculations.
4. Error analysis of the data and the results obtained.
5. A report describing your entire experiment, observations, graphs, and inferences in a pdf
format.