written by Andrew Duffy

This simulation gives students a powerful way to investigate the meaning of shape and slope for three types of motion graphs: position vs. time, velocity vs. time, and acceleration vs. time. The simulation starts with a motion diagram of a blue ball moving horizontally, with a position vs. time graph simultaneously displayed. The student's task is to "match" the motion of an adjacent red ball to that of the blue ball, by using sliders to set the initial position, initial velocity, and acceleration. To set it up correctly requires the student to analyze and interpret motion of the blue ball. After matching the motion, students can predict what the velocity and acceleration graphs look like by sliding the end points of the red lines up or down to give correct straight-line graphs.

See Annotations Below for an editor-recommended interactive tutorial on interpreting motion graphs.

This item was created with Easy Java Simulations (EJS), a modeling tool that allows users without formal programming experience to generate computer models and simulations. To run the simulation, simply click the Java Archive file below. To modify or customize the model, See Related Materials for detailed instructions on installing and running the EJS Modeling and Authoring Tool.

• Download ejs_bu_graph_matching_v1.jar - 2086kb Java Archive File

Last Modified June 6, 2014

This file has previous versions.

The source code zip archive contains an XML representation of the Graph Matching Motion model.   Unzip this archive in your EJS workspace to compile and run this model using EJS.

• Download ejs_bu_graph_matching_v1.zip - 6kb Compressed File

Published April 27, 2010
Last Modified June 6, 2014

This file has previous versions.