| Balance Ball | VRML Project |
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Introduction Our VRML project is based on the principle of conservation of momentum. That means: The sum of all masses times their speed remains constant, even after a collision. The following picture shows schematically how the game works:  Our goal is to create a 3-dimensional model of this experiment in Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML). Description Five balls of the same size and weight are connected with a string to static points. If we pull up a ball and let it drop down, it collides with the next one in the row. Immediately after the collision the ball on the opposite side gets in motion and swings (almost) as high as the first one. This even works if we do this with more than one ball. Because in the real world the collision is not fully elastic, the balls get a bit deformed. This deformation reduces the energy of motion. Therefore the height of the swing decreases with each collision. Another feature to add to our virtual world is a control element that allows to adjust the elastic behavior. This influences how the balls act in case of a collision. |
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© 1999 by A. Brand, R. Gressly, R. Jegerlehner |