How can I use physics to determine the inclination of a tilted air hockey table?

[Coolbass04]

I've been at this dang problem for 4-5 hours now. Still can't understand how to do it. Anyone have any hints or pointers of where to begin, or what to do??

A physics student playing with an air hockey table (a frictionless surface) finds that if she gives the puck a velocity of 3.82 m/s along the length (1.76 m) of the table at one end, by the time it has reached the other end the puck has drifted a distance 2.59 cm to the right but still has a velocity component along the length of 3.82 m/s. She concludes correctly that the table is not level and correctly calculates its inclination from the above information.

That is all the information that is given. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[brandon.irwin]

You have a distance and a velocity...this means you can calculate a time.

 

[vsage]

Fun question. Ok well you know since it's a frictionless surface then the slide to the right is entirely due to gravity. However, you have to do a little trig to see exactly how much of the components of gravity are affecting the puck. The first step would be to figure out exactly how much time it took to get to the end of the table. Now that you have a time you can do a few more things. You know that since gravity is accelerating the puck a little to the right that it is under a constant acceleration. Given a position and a time and constant acceleration, you can determine exactly what that acceleration is. That should get the ball rolling in the right direction.