Simulation Projectile Motion

Full Version 1.0 - © 2002 Steffen Maus und Daniel Roth - All rights reserved!

A projectile is shot with the initial angle alpha and the initial velocity v0. During flight the projectile is creating track marks.

By moving the mouse over the reference system, the passed time and the time between two track marks can be displayed.

Parameter changes have to be confirmed by hitting the ENTER key.

  • The background of the animation and the appearence of the projectile can be changed by editing the ".gif" bitmap files in the directory.
  • This Applet is "scriptable". This means that it can be configured and controled and that physical parameters of the simulation can be accessed by using JavaScript methods inside the embedding web page. More information about scripting can be found in the file scripting.html.

    The following methods are available:

      • jsStart()
      starts simulation

      jsStop()
      stops simulation

      jsReset()
      resets simulation

      jsSetVisible(state,element)
      make user interface elements visible or invisible:

        state = "yes": make user interface element visible
        state = "no": make user interface element invisible

        element = "V0Box": text field for initial velocity input
        element = "AlphaBox": text field for initial angle input
        element = "Start": button for starting/stopping simulation
        element = "Reset": button for reseting simulation
        element = "tOutput": overlay display of coordinates, time and frequency
        element = "trackmarks": display of trackmarks during flight of projectile
        element = "setup": display of arrow representing initial velocity during setup

      jsSetV0(value)
      set initial velocity of projectile (default value = 70)

      jsSetAlpha(value)
      set initial angle of projectile (default value = 50)

      jsSetXY(value,value)
      set initial position of projecitle (default value (x,y)= (0,0))

      jsSetG(value)
      set acceleration due to gravity (default value = 9.81 m/s²)

      jsSetF(value)
      set track mark every "value" (Integer!) simulation steps (default value = 5)

      jsSetDt(value)
      set time step for numerical caluclation (default value = 0.1s)

      jsGetX()
      get actual x-position of projectile (value type is double and not Integer)

      jsGetY()
      get actual y-position of projectile (value type is double and not Integer) 

      jsGetPx()
      get actual x-component of momentum of projectile (value type is double and not Integer)

      jsGetPy()
      get actual y-component of momentum of projectile (value type is double and not Integer)

      jsGetT()
      get actual time (value type is double and not Integer