Mr. Wayne's Class's Physics Teacher's Resource Pages |
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| MAIN PAGE | |
These pages contain over 90 Flash(tm) animations used during lectures and labs. Many do NOT contain descriptions in the animations because they are designed to be used in conjunction with a lecturer. Many are moviews while others are student centered explorations. Most of the these animations are in a Flash 5 format. This means they can be used in PowerPoint presentations by download the swf file and dragging it to your slide. If you have any ideas for new animations, contact me. These animations are not to be used in any publications without permission. Web pages will open in a new window. If you are a teacher, you may download an animation to your hard drive and use it with your class. The animation files may be played using your web browser. To do this, choose "Open..." from the File menu in the web browser's menu bar at the top of the screen. If the animations do not play in your web browser install the Flash plug-in from http://www.macromedia.com. Make sure your Flash(tm) plug-in is up to date! The downloaded files will need Aladdin's "Stuffit Expander." It is free, works on macs and windows computers. It is available from http://www.stuffit.com. Look carefully on the page for the FREE EXPANDER. Tony Wayne |
| Description | Download |
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| Center of Mass | ||
Center of mass hammer toss. This animation tosses a hammer and traces the motion. The user can choose the number of rotations for the toss. I use it to show how any object rotates about its center of mass when tossed. |
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| Circuits | ||
| This animation shows the currents coming together at a junction. I use swf file as a picture in a PowerPoint slide presentation. It animates the charges traveling down the wire and splitting at the junction. | ||
| This is a simple game style animation. one of the topics I teach is how to calculate the cost of electricity to run any appliance. A colleague, Tony Borash, came up with a great idea run it similar to the game "Family Feud." So I wrote this animation to act and the answer screen. The question is, "Which categories of energy is the highest?" Guide students to come up the categories or provide them yourself. Have them rank them and then play the game. Make sure to print a copy of the answers first so you'll know which buttons to press. I call it, "Family Energy Feud." | ||
| Circular Motion | ||
Cars and Curves: This animation
is used to explain why a passenger slides to the "outside" of
a curve while riding inside a car is NOT an example of centrifugal forces.
Instead is is a combination of centripetal force and inertia. I emphasize
that when an object moves to the outside of a circle it is because of
a lack of enough centripetal force and inertia keeps it moving in a straight
line. |
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Circular Motion's Components:
This animations shows the vectors components for any object traveling
in a circle. (Radius vector, velocity vector, centripetal force vector
and centripetal acceleration vector.) It then animates them traveling
in a circle. |
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Ferris wheel: Students check out laptops and load
this animation through the web browser. They then answer a series of questions
like, what is the period of motion, (measured with a stopwatch while watching
the animation), calculate the tangential velocity and centripetal acceleration. |
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Roller Coaster Loop the Loop : Students check out
laptops and load this animation through the web browser. They then answer
a series of questions like, what is the period of motion, (measured with
a stopwatch while watching the animation), calculate the tangential velocity,
centripetal acceleration and g's felt by the rider and the bottom and top
of the loop. |
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Scrambler: Students check out laptops and load
this animation through the web browser. They then answer a series of questions
like, what is the period of motion, (measured with a stopwatch while watching
the animation), calculate the tangential velocity and centripetal acceleration. |
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Time Shaft: Students check out laptops and load
this animation through the web browser. They then answer a series of questions
like, what is the period of motion, (measured with a stopwatch while watching
the animation), calculate the tangential velocity and centripetal acceleration. |
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| This animation illustrates two bugs traveling around on a turn table. I use it to illustrate to all the students what a turntable does and then to compare and contrast the difference between rotational and tangential velocities. It goes well with Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics textbook. | ||
| This animation shows how train wheels roll. I use it to illustrates how the outside wheel must have a greater radius if it is to have a greater tangential velocity while maintaining the same rotational velocity as the inside wheel. It goes well with Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics textbook. | ||
| This animation shows a science fiction like space station rotating. A space ship docks and coasts from it when departing. It also shows where a person would stand to experience artificial gravity. I use it as part of a series of animations that go with a collection of worksheets, | ||
| This animations shows a series of for loops and the g's experienced by riders who travel the different loops. I use it as part of a series of worksheets with animations. |
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| This animation shows a collection of "spy films" of cars traveling on a circular track until they loose traction. This shows how engineers test the lateral acceleration of cars. I use it as part of a series of worksheets with animations. | ||
| This animation is done as a game. It is an overhead view of a ball attached to a string being swung in a circle. The use adjusts the roation speed and presses a button to cut the string and release the ball. The goal is for the use r to d this at just the right moment fo the ball to hit a target some distance away. I use it as part of a series of worksheets with animations. | ||
| This is a collection of the above animations that go together with a collection of worksheets. I use these instead of the typical pen and paper worksheets. The worksheet's answers are in the handout sections of the "zipped" file. (This needs to be updated to include more files.) | - zip (2.7Mb) |
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| Electrostatics | ||
| I use this animation as a lecture aide to introduce students to the schematic diagram and e-fields between a plate. Is shows two metal plates connected to a pair of batteries. you can click on/off the e-field and show a charged particle traveling across the plates. You can click a button labeled, "schematic" to show the symbols scientists and engineers use to illustrate the physical setup. Press, "Play," in the animation to see the charge accelerate across the plates. | ||
W=qV. I use this animation to show electric potential and contrast it with potential energy. It shows a micro sized tractor pushing charges towards a charged block. Using a "work" meter it shows the energy it takes to move the charge. Have the student conclude the relationship between the work and the number of charges. Then relate this to "W=qV." I use this after my work against a field animation. |
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Battery: A battery is a device with separated charges. When a wire connects the ends it channels the e-field between the ends. The e-field propels the charges along the wire. This animation is sparse. It accompanies a lecture. It starts with a charge and its e-field. Then it shows how the charge changes in proximity to the opposite charge. Next the charges are encased in a shell. This is the battery. Finally, a wire channels the e-field and propels the charge along the wire. |
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A positively charged balloon is brought near a ceiling made of an insulator. This animation shows and describes how the electron cloud and nucleus shift in the insulator to polarize the ceiling's molecules and attract the charged balloon. |
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I've combined two animations to show how charges move on an insulator (latex balloon, and on a conductor, mylar balloon. |
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This a collection of animations that go with a series of electrostatics demonstrations that I do in class. They help students to visualize how the charges move in the demonstrations. |
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This is a series of photos of a plasma globe. It shows the field lines motions. There is not substitute for the real plasma globe. This was just interesting to do. |
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| This animation shows how a Van de Graaf acquires its charge. | ||
| This animation is used to assist my lecture. It shows a, stationary, positive particle. (It is held in place by an imaginary "nano-nail.") Another particle is pushed towards the stationary particle by a hand. As it is moved around the force vector is shown. With a click of a button the e-field appears. Students can see that the force points in the e-field's direction and increases with the e-field's strength. I use this in conjunction with the nanotractor animation. | ||
| Fluids | ||
| This animations shows how a hydraulic lift works -in principle. This is an example of Pascal's Principle. Pressure equals force/area. The small force and small area on the pump side equals the large force and large area on the other side. The pressure is transferred equally through the hydraulics. | ||
| This animation shows the level a boat floats at when the density of the fluid is adjusted. You adjust the fluids density with a slider and the boat reacts. | ||
| This animation is similar to the one above. Only is offers a different view of the boat and has a freebody diagram. | ||
| The Bernoulli Ball Shooter is an demonstration that I do in class. This animation illustrates how Bernoulli's principle is demonstrated. | ||
| Bubble bubble boil and trouble. This animaition is used to show size as a comparison with depth. The user move the bubble around while making observations of size versus depth. Then the student can make inferences as to why they get this behavior. | ||
| Bubble bubble boil and trouble -movie. This animaition is used to show size as a comparison with depth. It is like the animation above except it is a Flash 5 movie, no controls, and is suitable for placing in a PowerPoint or KeyNote Slide show. | ||
| This animation is made to be placed in a PowerPoint or KeyNote presentation. (It is a Flash 5 movie.) It is a comparison between the draining of two water towers. Click here to see some free images of the water tower the animation mimics. There also some nice silo pictures here showing how the increase in pressure at the base is compensated for. | ||
| Water Tower Pressure. This is an applicaiton of the pressure at depth concept.This can be placed in a PowerPoint or KeyNote presentation. The controls won't work, but it will play as a movie. When I present it, I introduce the concept of pressure at depth and ask why water towers have this funky shape? Then I explain that our water pressure in our houses comes from gravity. Run the animation saying that this is hte water towers level in the morning; run it; then say this is the water towers level in the evening after the businesses have closed. Which tower will give a greater prssure at the water faucet? | ||
| Frames of Reference | ||
| This animation shows the stars traveling by from the portal window on a spaceship. I ask students to describe the motion of the spaceship. After the have had a chance to discuss their possible solutions I click on the next button to see two comparative animations that show both possibilities are correct. This leads us to how your perception of things biases your inferences. This is done before the discussion and animation on "apparent weightlessness." | ||
| Harmonic Motion | ||
"How Shock Ab sobers" work. This is a simplified animation showing, from the inside, how a shock absorber works. This animation is used when I talk about forced harmonic motion. It also includes a graph that mimics the shock's amplitude as a function of time. Notice how the amplitude diminishes over time. |
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| Impulse and Momentum | ||
This animation shows a scene of cars traveling down the road. Then it shows the same scene with momentum arrows over the vehicles. Finally it shows the momentum arrow and impulse arrow as a ball bounces off a wall. |
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This animation is used in conjunction with animation below. I designed it to go into a PowerPoint or KeyNote slide. It shows a series of ELASTIC collisions involving several balls. Student compare this to an INELASTIC collisions below to generate his or her own rule for categorizing collisions. The web page link shows a web page mock up of the slide I use. To use it in power point, after downloading and expanding it, drag it to your slide in PowerPoint or KeyNote. |
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This animation is used in conjunction with animation above. I designed it to go into a PowerPoint or KeyNote slide. It shows a series of INELASTIC collisions involving several balls. Student compare this to an ELASTIC collisions above to generate his or her own rule for categorizing collisions. The web page link shows a web page mock up of the slide I use. To use it in power point, after downloading and expanding it, drag it to your slide in PowerPoint or KeyNote. |
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This animation is used in conjunction with animation below. I designed it to go into a PowerPoint or KeyNote slide. It shows a rocket ship at rest and then shooting a ball out the rear as it recoils in the opposite direction. This is shown on a slide with the animation below. the slide then asks students to generate his or her own rule for identifying recoil. The web page link shows a web page mock up of the slide I use. To use it in power point, after downloading and expanding it, drag it to your slide in PowerPoint or KeyNote. |
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This animation is used in conjunction with animation below. I designed it to go into a PowerPoint or KeyNote slide. It shows a drifting, cannon carrying, hot air balloon shooting a cannon ball. The hot air balloon recoils with the shot. This is shown on a slide with the animation above. The slide then asks students to generate his or her own rule for identifying recoil. The web page link shows a web page mock up of the slide I use. To use it in power point, after downloading and expanding it, drag it to your slide in PowerPoint or KeyNote. |
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Photogates: I use photogates connected to a CBL and TI-82. The photogates operate in two modes, "Gate" and "Pulse." This animation shows how the gates operate in the different modes so students will have the necessary understanding to choose which mode to use when designing a lab. |
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Magnetism and E & M |
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Magnetism Intro: I use this to introduce the idea of domains.This illustrates the fact that domains line up with a magnetic field and some metals, such as iron, partially retain the new domain alignment. |
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Levatron: This illustrates the magnetic field lines and how a toy called a "Levatron" sits in a funnel shaped magnetic field. This animation only makes senses if you demonstrate the Levatron toy. After demonstrating it show the imbedded magnet by taking a piece of plexiglass, or other acrylic sheet, 10" x 10" -or larger, sprinkle iron filings on it and move the sheet and filings over the top of the Levatron's base. |
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Closed Right Hand Rule: This illustrates the closed right hand rule used for determining the rotation of a magnetic field generated by a moving positive charge. |
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Open Right Hand Rule: This illustrates the open right hand rule. I use it in conjunction with a demonstration/station. The demonstration has a wire traversing a powerful horseshoes magnet's open end. The wire is perpendicular to the horseshoe magnet's ends. When the end of the wire are attached to a battery the wire jumps. |
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Stop Light: This illustrates how a stop light uses Lenz's Law to identify if a car is at the light. Basically coils of wire acting like a metal detector are buried in the road behind the white stop-line. The signals from this coil are fed to a box at the intersection. This box contains a computer. The computer controls the light. If you pull past the stop-line too soon, the sensor will think you have gone and it will not signal the stoplight. This means you will have to wait through an extra timing cycle before the light turns green again. |
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Example Problem: This is an example problem illustrating a thinking students kind of problem. |
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Homopolar motor: This animation is used after a station activity to explain how a homopolar motor works. I use it to emphasize how the open-right hand rule is used. |
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Aluminum ramp; This animation shows how a magnet sliding on a ramp is affected by Lenz's Law. I use it to help illustrate a lab station the students do. It could be used to augment a demonstration to the whole class. |
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| Mechanical Energy and Work | ||
This is a series of animations instead
of worksheets. I go through these problems one by one and ask which forces
are doing work "on" and "by." I also use them to help the students visualize
the problems and create a single energy expression. |
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The Wright Flyer: I have small video
clip of the wright flyer being launched. A cable connects the flyer to
a weight being dropped from a tower. Part of the the falling object's potential
energy is transferred to kinetic energy of the flyer. This animation gives
the students an idea of how this is accomplished. |
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This animation is used as an activity to show the conceptual connection between kinetic energy and potential energy due to gravity in an ideal world without non-conservative, forces. I use this with a handout. Click here for the WORD handout ZIPPED FILE ------ STUFFIT FILE. Click here for the Acrobat (pdf) version of the handout. This activity can be done in 30 minutes. |
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This simulation has a car racing towards a brick wall. 100 meters away from the wall the brakes are applied -always with the same force. The user inputs the velocity of the car before the brakes are applied. The stopping distance and the distance to the wall is reported back to the user. This can be used 2 ways. One is to make it a graphing exercise where students record initial velocities and stopping distance as they try to get the car as close to wall as possible without hitting the wall. To get a linear fit they must graph initial velocity vs distance squared. OR this could be used as an investigative tool to show the relationship between kinetic energy and work OR stopping distance and initial velocity. |
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| Miscellaneous (Things I've done for other people) | ||
What would happen if Greenland and Antarctica melted. This animation shows the result. |
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| Green House Effect on the Earth | ||
| Green House Effect in a building | ||
| Up and Down wellings in along the ocean shore. This animations shows the up and down wellings along the east and west coasts. It also shows the waves in the ocean so not to get the wellings confused with the wave motion. | ||
| Anoxic Lake: This animation shows fish disappearing as the oxygen is disappearing. It's not fancy. | ||
| Pressure versus altitude graph. This is an animated graph with an explanation of what is going on. | ||
| Cloud Seeding This animation shows how cloud seeding works. | ||
| Earth Quakes Magnitude animation. This animation shows the severity of the damage associated with different quakes. If you download the shockwave files at the left. Note that the main file is, "index.swf." The rest are support files. | ||
| Kinematics | ||
| This animation is used in a lecture presentation. It is sort of a guided inquiry. I pass out the worksheets associated with these graphs and then present the graphs individually to the class. Each animation is played several times (maybe 6 or7 times). The students draw the graphs and answers some questions. In the presentation I use A LOT of think-pair-share. Every graph is talked about before going on to the next. The goal is develop the students visualization skills and for them to make the connection between slope on a displacement vs time graph and velocity. The last graph will later be used as a lead in for acceleration. This lesson takes about 40 minutes. Click here for the associated worksheet. | ||
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A Police car waits at a stop light. A yellow car traveling at a constant
velocity passes the police car. At the instant they are side by side the
police car accelerates up to the other car. (Both car's have an oil leak
that leaves spots on the road.) This can be used to show how the oil drop
spacing indicate when a car is accelerating and moving at a constant velocity.
It can also help students to visualize the problem. |
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| This animation shows the vector nature of the kinematics formula. | ||
| This animation's roots started with a math teachers desire to have animation that shows a car traveling along a graph. The purpose is to show that is the car can traverse the graph then it's first derivative is a continuous function. I use the animation have student think about the graph of slopes. I hide the car in the animation and have them draw what graph might look like. The extra document is a note sheet that goes along with the animation. Its a printed graph of the animation. Click here for the accompanying note sheet. Acrobat file.____WORD document. | ||
| Light | ||
I use this as one of my animations to show refraction. It shows how the P-wave associated with an earthquake refracts through the Earth's cores. It also shows how an S-Wave does not travel through the Earth's liquid core. the explanation button also demonstrates longitudinal (P) and transverse (S) waves. (A slinky, or long spring, is a better demonstrator of transverse and longitudinal waves.) |
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| This animation show the critical angle and the conditions associated with it. | ||
| Newton's Laws of Motion | ||
Basketball, According to Aristotle. Aristotle believed
that a projectile traveled in two straight lines at a constant velocity.
This animation compares our ideas of basketball to Aristotle's. |
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1st Law Inertia: A car contains a balloon. When the
car accelerates forward the resists the acceleration and "pools" in the rear of the car. this creates a region of high pressure. Because
air has a higher density than Helium (He) it pushes the balloon forward. |
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3rd Law: This animation can also be used to show the
conservation of momentum. It shows a rocket in space. This rocket is propelled
by throwing a glowing mass out the rear of the rocket. With each mass the
rocket's velocity jumps. |
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2nd and 3rd Laws: This animation is a series of elevators going up and down. They show a passenger riding on a scale inside each elevator. As the elevators move the scale's reading is displayed. This shows how the reaction force of the scale changes with various motions. I use this animation to compare and contrast "apparent weightlessness" versus weightlessness. Because weight is defined as w=mg then you cannot be weightless. But you can experience apparent weightlessness. |
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This animation shows how the "Texas Native Inertia Nutcracker" uses Newton's 1st Law. I found the "Texas Native Inertia Nutcracker" on eBay. New versions are also sold at other places. |
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| This activity is student center. Students play a game and learn about inertia as they try to reach the maximum speed and stop before hitting a wall. Different vehicles have different amounts of inertia. There is a mystery vehicle where the students observes the data and orders the vehicles according to their inertia's. This activity has an accompanying worksheet. (It will be available by September 2006. ) It requires the latest Flash plug in Flash8. | ||
| Planetary Motion (Kepler and Newton's U. Gravity) | ||
This animation places a cannon on top of a mountain
on the North Pole. The cannon fires a projectile at different velocities
until it orbits around the Earth. The goal is to show that an orbiting object
is perpetually falling in order to remain in orbit. |
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Kepler's 3 Laws of Planetary motion are animated.
You may choose a law to display from the main screen's menu. |
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| Projectile Motion | ||
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Shows the relation ship between the vertical impact velocity and the
launch velocity for symmetrical flight. |
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A projectile is shot in a planar motion. A light over head and behind
cast a shadow from the projectile. The shadows highlight the accelerations
in the vertical and horizontal planes. |
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A ball is launched at an angle and lands at the same
height it is launched from. A camera takes a picture of the flight every
second on the same frame of film. The images are then moved down and to
the right to show the independence of horizontal and vertical motion. |
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A ball is rolled off a table and lands at on the floor. A camera takes
a picture of the flight every second on the same frame of film. The images
are then moved down and to the right to show the independence of horizontal
and vertical motion. It is similar to the animation above. |
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"Monkey and the Hunter:" I now call this "The Monkey and
the Conservationist." This animation shows the classic demonstration.
It also allows the user to choose how to aim the rifle and then show the
results. Note: If you download the files to play on your computer, it is
actually 4 files that all play together. The file "MonkeyHunter.swf" is
the file to click on. |
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This animation shows the signs associated with displacement, velocity
and acceleration vectors for many different types of projectile motion. |
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This animation visually shows why the velocity is
used to calculate a projectile's impact ANGLE. |
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| This is my favorite animation for showing the independence
between horizontal and vertical projectile motion. It starts with a helicopter
traveling at a constant, horizontal, velocity. A picture is taken every
second of flight to show the spacing. Next the helicopter drops a passenger
straight down. Again a picture is taken every second to show the position.
Then the helicopter is traveling horizontally when it drops a passenger.
Again pictures are take and the connection between horizontal and vertical
motion is shown. Finally, an animations shows two helicopters traveling
at different velocities. They both drop their passengers at the same time
from the same altitude. Both passengers hit the ground at the same time
but at different horizontal positions. (Thanks to Tony Borash for the
animation idea.) |
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Terminal Velocity: This animation shows a person falling and his speed as he falls. When a button is clicked the person is allowed to complete the fall. |
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| Relativity | ||
This animation shows how a object appears as it approaches the speed of light. The user changes the speed by moving a slider. The jet's shape simplistically changes with the change in speed. I use it to show conceptually that traveling 50% the speed of light does not mean 50% length. Also it shows that the object dimensions perpendicular to direction of motion, (the height), does not change. |
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| Sound | ||
| This sound animation is used to visualize the refraction of sound waves in an atmosphere of normal temperature layers and in an temperature inversion. Temperature inversions are more common over lakes. The water in the lake absorbs heat energy from the air above it and cause a temperature inversion. Refraction of sound is why a person can hear clearly across a lake in the evening. | ||
| Thermodynamics | ||
This shows an endothermic reaction of melting ice. It shows the graph and temperature scale as the ice melts. |
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This animation shows the different types of P-V diagrams. Isobaric, Isovolumetric, Isothermal & Adiabatic. It shows the graph and a container. |
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| Heat Capacity: This animation shows how the land and sea heat up at different rates due to their heat capacity's. I point out the rate at which the thermometer changes as well as how much. | ||
This animation shows what what happens to air molecules as a sealed container is heated. |
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| Universal Gravity | ||
When talking about applications of the Universal Gravitational Law I discuss our suns life. This animation supports the lecture. This animation shows how the expansion due to fusion is balanced by the gravitational forces. |
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In my curriculum map, this the unit where I first discuss the nature of an inverse square law. This animation shows how spray paint follows the inverse square law. |
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Weightlessness? I use this to illustrate how weightlessness depends on your frame of reference. But according to w=mg and the fact that gravity goes on for an infinite distance then there is no such thing as weightlessness. This I use this animation is conjunction with my frames of reference animation. |
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| Vectors | ||
This is a part of the classic activity where students let a tractor move across a board at a constant velocity while moving the board it rides on. Vectors are drawn and added. This is the digital version of this activity. It would make a good make up activity for students who missed the original. |
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This is used as part of a lecture on adding vectors up by components. While is it intended to be used with a smartboard, is can be manipulated fine by a mouse. The idea is for the presenter to move the vectors in place then click on the, "Components," button and move the components in place to show the pieces adding up. This is a good activity for students to move the components in place. |
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