If it is closer to the ground, it has less distance from the ground, and hence, less potential gravitational energy as distance decreased. We can determine if ME is conserved. Let's make a equation layout to show the work. The slight difference between inital and total is probably due to Human error Energy transferring to other areas, such as the air Also, other funny things I noticed. Observing table 1, the spring constant continually drops as the spring stretches more.
Spring becomes weaker as it is stretched.
Yes - through averaging them all. Fascinating enough, we were able to achieve our objective of finding out the PE of gravity and spring energy. We even found out ME was conserved. This contrasts the other labs where we never seemed to find what we predicted would happen. I put the reason on having new equipment.