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I'm preparing for a grade 11 physics exam but having trouble with a question:

a 19.9kg mass slides in a straight 28.8m line experiencing friction with a coefficient of 0.105, how much thermal energy is produced?

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What makes you think a pendulum is involved? – Raskolnikov Jun 19 '11 at 20:10
woops i put the title relating to another question by mistake – user4090 Jun 19 '11 at 20:15
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OK, I suspected something like that. Concerning the thermal energy, you can compute how much work the frictional force is exerting. This will pretty much be the thermal energy, discounting sound waves and other possible effects. – Raskolnikov Jun 19 '11 at 20:23

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For the force of gravity use $F = m a$ where $a$ is the acceleration of gravity. For the frictional force, multiply this $F$ by the coefficient to get $F_f = \mu F = 0.105 F$. For the thermal energy use $W = F_f\;\; d$, where $W$ is the work and $d$ is the distance.

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