Oblique collision: Particle and Barrier

This is an interactive Geogebra page. I use it for teaching CAIE Further Mechanics.

You can run this page in a browser by clicking here or you can download the file if you want to. Geogebra pages can easily be embedded into other web-sites, including Firefly.
(Amendment: Version 2 shows the values of the components)

You can click-and-drag the red and purple spots to change the direction of the velocity of the particle immediately before the collision. The blue arrow shows the velocity immediately after the collision.

The black spot can tilt the barrier at a different angle.

A slider controls the coefficient of restitution.

With check-boxes you can show the components of the velocities parallel and perpendicular to the barrier (called x and y), the angles and the grid.

I hope the controls are fairly self-explanatory, but get in touch with me if you have a suggestion.

You might want to use it to introduce oblique collisions to a class who have already seen direct collisions.

See my blog post about using this

Update 4/12/2022 - A blog-reader asked how to show the values of the speeds - I’ve added an option for this.