Instructions for Students & Teachers

Use the simulator above to explore how mass, applied force, and the angle of the ramp all combine to determine an object's acceleration along an incline. Adjust the ramp angle, mass, applied force, and friction to see how each one changes the forces acting along and perpendicular to the slope.

How to Use the Newton's Second Law - Inclined Planes Simulator

View & Playback
Use the view options to set the simulator to light mode, dark mode, or landscape mode. Light and Dark are simplified "scientific" views where landscape offers a slightly less abstract view of what's happening.
Use playback to start, pause, or reset the simulator after the parameters have been set to your specifications.
Under the play and reset buttons are buttons to control the speed that the simulator runs at to make it easier to see what's happening.

Parameters
Use this section to set the conditions of the scenario to your own specifications. Ramp Angle (θ) controls how steep the incline is; Mass, Applied Force, and Gravity behave the same way they do in the Basics simulator, just now measured along the slope instead of a flat surface.
Applied Force (Fₐ) uses a sign convention: positive values push the block down the slope, negative values push it up the slope.
Note for teachers: this is a good spot to have students predict the sign of the acceleration before hitting play, since it's easy to mentally default to "positive force = positive motion" without accounting for direction along the incline.
Start Position lets you set where the block begins on the ramp (0% = bottom, 100% = top), useful for controlling how much room the block has to slide before it reaches the bottom or is stopped by friction.

Friction
Use this to toggle whether the surface is considered smooth (frictionless) or rough. If you enable this you will then have the ability to adjust the coefficient of friction.
Note for teachers: it doesn't specify static vs. kinetic friction as this isn't meant to be the focus of this particular simulator; it is possible to set friction large enough that the block won't accelerate, or won't move at all if released from rest.

Calculated Forces
This section gives you a live readout of the relevant data as the simulator runs, already broken into the along-slope and perpendicular-to-slope components (Fg∥ and Fn) that make inclined plane problems different from flat-ground ones. Use this section to check your own force-component calculations before or after running the simulation.

Display
Use these options to toggle what's included in the canvas (main window) of the simulator.
Fg∥ / Fg⊥ Components — draws gravity split into its two component vectors along and perpendicular to the ramp, often the hardest part of an incline problem for students to visualize on their own.
Note for teachers: turning this on before students try angle-based Challenge problems can help them see why sine goes with the along-slope component and cosine goes with the perpendicular one, rather than just memorizing which is which.
Motion Graphs — adds live Position, Velocity, and Acceleration plots below the block once turned on. Move your cursor over the graph to see the data at any given moment in time.

Challenge Mode (Test your understanding!)
Difficulty: Easy, Medium, Hard
Easy: friendly integer numbers that most students could compute without a calculator.
Medium: slightly more difficult numbers to compute.
Hard: friction is more likely to be involved, and the missing quantity is more likely to be the ramp angle itself rather than force or acceleration.
Include Friction toggle (adds friction to the challenge scenario)
A "Given" panel lists the known values (mass, ramp angle, applied force, acceleration, friction, gravity) — three are given and the fourth is the mystery. Depending on the challenge, you may be asked to solve for the Applied Force, the Acceleration, or the Ramp Angle itself.
Note for teachers: because the unknown quantity changes challenge to challenge, this is a good simulator for making sure students can rearrange Newton's Second Law algebraically instead of just plugging into one memorized arrangement of the formula.
If you're stuck on a challenge there is a button to provide a hint to help you progress.
Mastery tip: If you run into challenges where you need hints, don't be afraid to use them! Just make sure you keep trying them until you don't need the hints anymore.
Enter your answer and click Check.
New Challenge generates a new scenario.

Lab Mode
Choose a lab to investigate:
a vs F: vary the applied force on an angled ramp. Applied Force is your independent variable, acceleration is your dependent variable, ramp angle and mass are your constants. Collect data and see if you can figure out the physical meaning of the slope of the graph.
a vs θ: vary the ramp angle with no applied force. Ramp angle is your independent variable, acceleration is your dependent variable, mass is your constant. This lab isolates how the incline's steepness alone affects acceleration, separate from any pushing or pulling force.
To record data simply set your parameters relevant to the experiment then hit the "record data point" button. It will automatically log the resulting data in a table and plot it.
After you've recorded your data point, change your independent variable in the parameters section then hit the "record data point" button again.
Once you have a minimum of five data points your graph will be complete. If it's already linear then it will automatically report the slope of the line. If it isn't linear then you'll have the option to linearize it.
Note for teachers: the a vs θ lab is the one to use if you want students to discover a = g·sin(θ) experimentally rather than being told the relationship outright.
Take note of what function linearizes it and how that can relate the variables.
Once you've figured out the physical meaning of the slope, use it to see if you can figure out the value of your constant variable. If you get it wrong it will automatically provide some feedback on how to progress.
If you're doing this for a class and need to show your data, click the "copy" button in the top right corner of the data table and graph to paste them into a document.

Live Readout
Net Force, Acceleration, Velocity, Distance along slope, and Time — update live while the simulation plays.