Weicheng Wang¹ and Yu Sun², ¹USA, ²California State Polytechnic University, USA

When undergraduate students just got into the physics field, it might be difficult for them to understand, think, and imagine what is happening in certain phenomenons [6]. For example, when two objects have different masses and velocity collide into each other, how are they going to act? Are they going to stop, bounce away from each other, or stick together? This simulation helps the students who do not feel comfortable imagining these scenarios.

Currently we only have the gravitation lab, the trajectory lab, and the collision lab. The gravitation lab is a planet orbiting a sun, where the users can input different masses for the sun and planet, and the radius (in AU), the program will then calculate the gravitational force and orbital period while the planet starts orbiting its sun at a certain speed [7]. The trajectory lab is an object doing projectile motion, where the user input variables like initial velocity, angle, height, and acceleration, the program will present current position and velocity on the screen as the object doing projectile motion [8]. The collision lab is where the user input the masses and velocities for the two objects, and after the user decide the collision is going to elastic or not, set the lab and press start, the program will calculate the total momentum and kinetic energy and have it on the right side of the screen while the objects starts colliding [9].

Physics, Simulation, Problem Solving, Animation.