University of Wisconsin Green Bay

Two students need to build a Rube Goldberg machine for a middle school Science Olympiad competition. To start the chain of events, they plan to shoot a (2.7 g) ping pong ball horizontally out of a tube using a spring (k = 18 N/m) that has been compressed 6.5 cm. The ping pong ball will strike another ping pong ball that is suspended from a 50. cm long string. The balls will stick together (due to 0.10 g of superglue on the second ball) and swing up to strike a third ball at the top of a ramp. If the top of the ramp is to be just at the top of the swing of the ping pong balls, how high do the students need to build it?