General Description of the Software Product
The software package «Translational and Rotational Motion» includes 10 virtual laboratory works from the general physics course for students of higher and secondary educational institutions.
List of virtual labs:
1. Uniformly Accelerated Motion
2. Motion with Uniform Acceleration
3. Laws of Collisions
4. Free Fall
5. Inclined Launch
6. Precession and Nutation of a Gyroscope
7. Rotational Motion with Uniform Acceleration
8. Moment of Inertia of a Horizontal Rod
9. Moment of Inertia of Various Test Bodies
10. Maxwell’s Wheel
Target computing device type and platform supported: IBM-compatible personal computer running Microsoft Windows.
Additionally, the package includes a web version of the virtual laboratory (HTML-5 platform), designed to be uploaded to the server of an educational organization in order to conduct remote classes with students.
The graphics component of the software uses the OpenGL 2.0 component base. The graphical user interface of the program is implemented in English.
Minimum System Requirements
- Processor clock speed: at least 2 GHz
- RAM: at least 4 GB
- Video memory: at least 512 MB
- Screen resolution: at least 1024x768x32
- OpenGL version 2.0 support
- DirectX version 9.0.c support (for Windows)
- Standard keyboard and computer mouse with scroll wheel (for PC)
- Audio playback devices (audio speakers or headphones)
To work with the web version of the virtual laboratory, you must use a web browser that supports WebGL 3D graphics, for example, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Mozilla Firefox. The HTML components of the web version must be uploaded to a physical server. If you need to use a local server, it is recommended to use the XAMPP (Apache) assembly.
Types of Licensing
The Virtual Lab is supplied only for educational organizations with installation on an unlimited number of places (corporate license).
1. Uniformly Accelerated Motion
Goals: study of uniformly accelerated motion of the body depending on the accelerating and accelerated masses.
2. Motion with Uniform Acceleration
Goals: distance measurement depending on time; determination of velocity at any given moment in time; determination of acceleration at any given point depending on time; determination of the average acceleration according to the data.
3. Laws of Collisions
Goals: study of elastic and inelastic collisions of two sliding bodies on an air track; demonstration of momentum conservation for elastic and inelastic collisions and observation of individual impulses for elastic collisions; study of energy distribution in elastic and inelastic collisions.
4. Free Fall
Goals: measuring the time it takes for the ball to fall to the distance between the release mechanism and the target below; plotting the distance/time diagram for uniformly accelerated movement; demonstration that the distance covered is proportional to the square of time; determination of the acceleration of gravity.
5. Inclined Launch
Goals: measuring the width of the trajectory depending on the angle of throw and initial velocity; calculation of the initial velocity according to the maximum width of the trajectory; constructing along the points of a parabolic path depending on the angle of the throw.
6. Precession and Nutation of a Gyroscope
Goals: demonstration that the period of rotation of the disc is inversely proportional to the period of the gyroscope precession; determination of the moment of inertia of the disc; demonstration that the period of rotation of the disc is proportional to the period of nutation.
7. Rotational Motion with Uniform Acceleration
Goals: plotting the dependence of the angle of rotation on time for uniformly accelerated rotational motion; confirmation of proportionality between the angle of rotation and the square of time; determination of angular acceleration as a function of torque; determination of angular acceleration as a function of the moment of inertia; confirmation of Newton’s equation of motion.
8. Moment of Inertia of a Horizontal Rod
Goals: determination of the torsional coefficient of the spring; determination of the moment of inertia depending on the distance from additional weights to the axis; determination of the moment of inertia as a function of the mass of the additional weight.
9. Moment of Inertia of Various Test Bodies
Goals: determination of the torsional coefficient of the spring; determination of the moment of inertia of the rod without additional weights; determination of the moment of inertia as a function of the distance from the weight to the axis; determination of the moment of inertia for a round wooden disc, wooden sphere, solid and hollow cylinder.
10. Maxwell's Wheel
Goals: plotting of distance-time and velocity-time diagrams for the first downward motion; determination of acceleration and moment of inertia of the wheel; determination of kinetic and potential energy when moving up and down; confirmation of the law of conservation of energy taking into account friction losses.
