The Stick Falling from Table Model shows the translational and rotational motion of a stick falling from a table.  The normal and gravitational force vectors and the center of mass trajectory are shown.  Users can vary the initial velocity of the stick and height of the table.  The stick's motion occurs in three phases.  In first phase, the stick slides along the tabletop without rotating until the CM reaches the tabletop edge.  In the second phase, the gravitational force acts at the CM and a normal force acts at the edge to produce both linear and angular accelerations.  In the final phase, the stick is no longer in contact with the table and free-falls with constant angular velocity and constant CM acceleration.

The model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.  Double clicking the ejs_newton_StickFallingFromTable.jar file will run the program if Java is installed.

Please note that this resource requires at least version 1.5 of Java (JRE).