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phetsims / forces-and-motion-basics

"Forces and Motion: Basics" is an educational simulation in HTML5, by PhET Interactive Simulations.
http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/forces-and-motion-basics
GNU General Public License v3.0
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User suggestion: Add timer, simplify speedometer #174

Closed oliver-phet closed 8 years ago

oliver-phet commented 8 years ago

Dear Phet,

On the "Forces and Motion: Basics" simulation, I really like the speed dial that can show up. I would like to make one suggestion or request.

Could you add a timer? Could you change speed calculations so that the dial represents simpler #'s?

I would like to be able to give my students the F=ma equation and the a=v/t equation and then use the app and timer to calibrate the clock or tell me what #'s should go on the big and little lines in the speed dial. I like that no #'s are listed on the speed dial, because I want to ask the students to find out what #'s should go there.

So for example. With a known force and mass, the acceleration can be calculated. Then using (final velocity - initial velocity)/(final time -initial time)=a a student could then use the F and m to get a and then use the timer to find final v. Then they can calibrate the clock!

Currently the speed dial doesn't come out to be such a nice number for each unit on the dial. It would be nice if each segment represented something like 5m/s just any whole # such as 7m/s at least.

This would make for an awesome in depth lab. Thanks.

oliver-phet commented 8 years ago

@ariel-phet Can you comment on this suggestion?

ariel-phet commented 8 years ago

@oliver-phet we will not be adding a timer to the sim, but you can let the user know that in an upcoming version (to be redeployed within a couple of weeks) the speedometer will have a readout option (if the "values" checkbox has been checked).

In that version each tick mark represents 1 m/s (which seems like a very easy simple to interpret division)

oliver-phet commented 8 years ago

Emailed user. Closing.

oliver-phet commented 3 years ago

Just to document, another user requested a timer.

I am a science educator and would find it WONDERFUL if you would add a TIMER/CLOCK to your Forces-and-motion-basics simulations, especially in the Motion and Acceleration sims, so students can keep track of time passed. Would it be possible to add this in the near future?