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Collision Lab Guide

The document provides tips for using the PhET Collision Lab simulation to teach about momentum and energy conservation in collisions. Key tips include: changing ball velocities and positions, focusing on ball-ball collisions which conserve momentum, determining energy changes using the kinetic energy display, and exploring "explosions" by setting balls next to each other with initial total momentum of zero. The simulation has been used successfully for lectures, activities, and homework to introduce, reinforce, and visualize physics concepts.

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Marcelo Arancibia
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27 views

Collision Lab Guide

The document provides tips for using the PhET Collision Lab simulation to teach about momentum and energy conservation in collisions. Key tips include: changing ball velocities and positions, focusing on ball-ball collisions which conserve momentum, determining energy changes using the kinetic energy display, and exploring "explosions" by setting balls next to each other with initial total momentum of zero. The simulation has been used successfully for lectures, activities, and homework to introduce, reinforce, and visualize physics concepts.

Uploaded by

Marcelo Arancibia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PhET Tips for Teachers Collision Lab

Written by Trish Loeblein, Mike Dubson, Mindy Gratny last updated Oct 21 , 2010

Tips for controls:


The Momentum box is a display of the momentum, you cannot change the momentum
The velocities are changeable by grabbing the green vectors
The balls initial location can be moved by grabbing the balls.
Turning off Reflecting Borders enables students to focus on “ball- ball” collisions which do
conserve Momentum. “Ball-wall” collisions do not conserve momentum
Mechanical energy changes can be determined using the Kinetic Energy display.
In the data table, all units in MKS (meters, kilograms, seconds)
Elasticity affects the ball-wall and ball-ball collisions.
When the velocity vector becomes too small to see, a dark circle appears on the ball. The circle is
grabbable to change the velocity.
You can Pause the sim and then use Step to incrementally analyze.
If you are doing a lecture demonstration, set your screen resolution to 1024x768 so the simulation
will fill the screen and be seen easily.

Important modeling notes / simplifications:


Time step is variable according to Time slider
The balls are non-rotating.
In one dimension, the vectors are not technically “tip-to-tail”: the vectors are offset, so that the
students can see them.
“Tip-to-Tail” can be unchecked to enable more understanding about vectors.

Insights into student use / thinking:


Students may prefer to start the sim in one dimension and with no walls. We will be developing
another tab for this simulation that will have starting conditions and variables more simple soon
to help with this issue.
If students vary the Elasticity, they can observe varying amounts of mechanical energy.

Suggestions for sim use:


“Explosions” can be explored by setting the balls next to one another and adjusting initial
velocities so that the initial total momentum is zero.
For tips on using PhET sims with your students see: Guidelines for Inquiry
Contributions and Using PhET Sims
The simulations have been used successfully with homework, lectures, in-class
activities, or lab activities. Use them for introduction to concepts, learning new concepts,
reinforcement of concepts, as visual aids for interactive demonstrations, or with in-class
clicker questions. To read more, see Teaching Physics using PhET Simulations
For activities and lesson plans written by the PhET team and other teachers, see:
Teacher Ideas & Activities

For Experts: Elasticity, a number between 0 and 1, indicates the amount of kinetic energy lost during
collisions. If the elasticity = 1, the collision is perfectly elastic, and kinetic energy is conserved.
Elasticity < 1 affects the magnitude of the component of the velocity along the “line of action” between
two colliding balls. The line of action is the line connecting the centers of the balls at the moment of
collision. If the elasticity is, say, 0.3, then the speed along the line of action after collision is 0.3 of the
value it would have had in an elastic collision. The speed perpendicular to the line of action is not
affected. Since these balls are non-rotating, changing the speed perpendicular to the line of action would
violate Conservation of Angular Momentum.

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