written by Michael R. Gallis

The Beach Ball JavaScript Model simulates the dynamics of a thrown beach ball. Because of its relatively low mass (compared to its size), subtle effects that are important in sports like baseball, soccer and volleyball become exaggerated in the beach ball's motion.  This simulation allows users to explore a simple model of several "complications" to simple projectile motion: drag, buoyancy and the Magnus effect.  Drag slows the ball down, buoyancy makes the ball "float" and the Magnus effect puts a curve on the ball's trajectory.

The Beach Ball JavaScript Model was developed using the Easy Java Simulations (EjsS) version 5.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run html page and requires only a browser with JavaScript support.  It is also distributed as an ePub.

• Download ejss_model_BeachBall.zip - 327kb Compressed File

Published February 20, 2017
Last Modified February 21, 2017

This source code zip archive contains an XML representation of the Beach Ball JavaScript Model.   Unzip this archive in your EJS workspace to compile and run this model using EJS ver 5.1 or above.  Although EjsS is a Java program, it creates a stand alone JavaScript program from this source code.

• Download ejss_src_BeachBall.zip - 61kb Compressed File

Last Modified February 22, 2017