The Moving Man
Visitors to this web site can choose to download or run online a Java simulation titled "The Moving Man." This simulation allows the user to interact with the 'moving man', who is confined to moving back and forth horizontally. The simulator records the motion of the person and allows the user to play it back. You can choose whether to display velocity and acceleration vectors or to plot simultaneous position-time, velocity-time, and acceleration-time graphs of the person's motion. This resource allows the user to observe vector quantities (velocity & acceleration), represented by scaled arrows, as the character moves, providing instant feedback and reinforcement to develop conceptual understanding. But this tool is perhaps most powerful when used to tie the horizontal motion of the person to graphical representations (position-time, velocity-time, acceleration-time).
