What quantity did you change?
Labs / Physics
Motion Grapher
A dot glides along the track while three graphs — position, velocity, and acceleration versus time — draw themselves from its motion. Steer it with the sliders, or pick a challenge and try to trace the dashed target curve. Drag across the graphs to freeze any moment and read off the numbers.
Labs / Physics / Motion Grapher
Motion Grapher
A dot glides along the track while three graphs — position, velocity, and acceleration versus time — draw themselves from its motion. Steer it with the sliders, or pick a challenge and try to trace the dashed target curve. Drag across the graphs to freeze any moment and read off the numbers.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Physics explains how changes in forces, energy, motion, and matter produce results we can measure. This model lets you test one part of that relationship at a time.
Explore
Try the model
x 0.00 mv 0.00 m/sa 1.00 m/s²t 0.00 smatch —
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Set acceleration to zero and give the dot some velocity. Why is the position graph a straight line while the velocity graph is flat?
- Turn up the acceleration. The velocity graph becomes a slanted line — so what shape does the position graph take, and why?
- Can you make the dot stop and reverse? What must the velocity graph do at the exact instant the dot turns around?
- In “Match: hill”, what starting velocity and acceleration reproduce the dashed curve? What does the peak of the hill tell you about the velocity there?
- Negative acceleration with positive velocity: is the dot speeding up or slowing down? What if both are negative?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Name the quantity you changed, the quantity that responded, and the physical rule connecting them. Use a readout or visible change as evidence.
Check
Before you leave
What measurable result changed?
Which physical idea connects them?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.