Computer Science 161 -- Final Project -- Swinging Pendulum
Sarah Warson
March 20, 2003
Final Project -- Swinging Pendulum
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For my final project I am making a swinging pendulum. It will contain
more the one pendulum. Each Pendulum will be suspended in air, hanging
from two bars. It will be in the center of the two bars and be hanging by
two strings. The user will be able to choose one to five pendulums. They
will then be able to pull the pendulum backwards (or upwards) and then
release it. Once released it will swing downwards and hit the next
pendulum. Once they colide the energy in one of the pendulums will be
passed to the next, until there are no more to be passed too. This will
now cause the pendulum(s) on the other side to start swinging upwards
now.
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Once I get this working I plan to add in other things, like having a wind
that will blow the pendulums sideways, or even directly at them to slow
it down faster.
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If all the pendulums were choosen and there are none hanging in the rest
position then the pendulums will just continue to swing, they will only
stop when the gravity or other forces makes them stop.
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I am also considering having the pendulums being different masses, that
the user can specify.
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I hope to have picking working for this program. This way the user would
be able to pick the object and move it to where they would like it.
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I plan to use physics to help me figure out how to move the different
pendulums. When they have a different mass they will swing at different
speeds. Also when they collide they will have a different amount of energy
to pass on to the next pendulum.
I will be using some information from
here
and
here
I took the ideas and tried to apply them to my program. The first site
had a good "lecture room" to help try to explain what was going on with
pendulums and the second site had good pictures and graphs to show how
pendulums move.
A short movie of my pendulums
A short movie of my pendulums
TIMELINE
USER GUIDE
Final Report
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