How do I plot a function which depends on a changing variable?

So I have to plot the movement of a spring once let go for -2<t<20 given yo=5(distance the spring is stretched initially), w=5(angular frequency), k=0.1/s. It has to be done using a for loop and if statements.

I am new to matlab so I don't know what to do from here. Thank you.

Here's the code I have:

    t = -2;

    yo = 5;

    w = 5;

    k = 0.1;

    for t = -2:20

      if t < 0 

          y = -yo;

      elseif t < 10

          y = -yo*(cos(w*t));

      else

          y = -yo*(cos(w*t))*exp(-k*(t-10));

      end

      t = t + 0.1;

    end

Answer 1

[Jim Hokanson]

You could use something like animatedline if you want to calculate a single point and add it to a graph. If you want to use a loop the more typical approach is to initialize t and y, then loop over t and update y.

t_all = -2:0.1:20;
y = zeros(1,length(t_all));
for i = 1:length(t_all)
   t = t_all(i);
   y(i) = ...
end
plot(t_all,y)