Forces and Motion: Basics

Computers have greatly evolved in the past few years, and aren’t just a means of having fun or earning a living. They can even serve as powerful learning environments, given they’re fitted with the right applications. For instance, Forces and Motion: Basics is the type of program which can teach you the basics on forces and motion.

One first note is that the application fully depends on Java Runtime Environment to function, so you might want to make sure it’s on your computer. On the other hand, the program itself isn’t packed inside an installer, so you can just as well store it on a thumb drive in case you want to use it on other computers.

The application manages to make a proper first impression, especially because of the style of presenting its features. All sections are fully interactive, with various objects you can place on the canvas to get a better understanding of how forces and motion works. There are four learning sections, such as tug of war, motion, friction, and acceleration lab.

Each section comes with its own method of interaction. Several objects can be used in your simulations, such as individuals, with different pulling and pushing forces, crates, differently-massed individuals, and even a heavy fridge.

Apart from simple interaction, you can also enable various info indicators in plain sight, such as forces, sum of forces, values, masses, speed, and acceleration. The simulation goes in real-time, and you can always reset for a different run. Sadly, you can’t generate reports based on multiple simulations.

All things considered, we can state that Forces and Motion: Basics manages to get the job properly done. It offers an intuitive, and impressive interface through which you interact in order to learn all basic functions of friction and motion.