TI-Nspire™ Activities: Physics

In this activity, students explore the relationship between displacement and restoring force for an elastic spring. They also learn how to calculate a spring constant.

Students first use a force sensor to collect data on the restoring force exerted by a spring when it is stretched to various lengths.

Students then examine a simulation of a spring to confirm the relationship they inferred from their collected data. They see that restoring force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the displacement of the spring from its equilibrium position. They use this information to calculate the value of the spring constant for the simulated spring and for the spring they used during the data collection.

Students then examine a simulation of three springs with the same equilibrium length but different spring constants. They vary the lengths of the springs and observe the weights necessary to keep the springs the same length. They then use this information to infer the relative sizes of the spring constants for the three springs.

Next, students examine a second simulation of three springs. In this simulation, the three springs have the same amount of weight attached to them. Again, students use the simulation to infer the magnitudes of the spring constants for the springs.

Finally, students use what they have learned to solve several spring problems.