Teacher Demonstration
Use the live model as a shared screen demonstration before students try their own predictions and observations.
Physics / Newtonian Mechanics
Ping Pong (SHM)Lookang
Analyse Ping Pong (SHM)Lookang as a Tracker video-analysis activity for damping, focusing on amplitude decay and energy dissipation.
lookang/Ping%20Pong%20(SHM)lookang_thumbnail.png)
1. Watch or Launch
Launch the Interactive
Open the simulation, adjust the controls, and compare what changes on screen before answering the concept-check questions.
Advertisement
2. Big Ideas
Key idea Damping reduces oscillation amplitude over time by transferring mechanical energy out of the oscillating system. Tracker data can show this through shrinking peaks or a decreasing envelope.
What Students Can Learn
- Identify successive peaks in displacement or height.
- Compare amplitudes across cycles.
- Connect amplitude decay to energy dissipation.
- Distinguish damping from the restoring force that still acts.
Guiding Question
How quickly does the amplitude shrink, and what does that say about energy transfer?
3. Try the Investigation
Find Repeated Peaks
Mark several maxima or minima in the motion or graph.
Compare Amplitudes
Measure or estimate whether each peak is smaller than the previous one.
Link to Energy
Explain that smaller amplitude means less mechanical energy remains in the oscillation.
Separate Forces
Distinguish the restoring effect from damping or resistance.
4. Teacher Notes
Lesson Use
Use this as a graph-evidence lesson: damping should be argued from successive peaks, not from one frame.
Discussion Prompts
Ask: Which peak is smaller? Does the period change? Where has mechanical energy gone?
Teaching Moves
Have students draw an envelope over the graph peaks and describe what it means.
5. Concept Check
These questions are generated from the topic and the concept illustrated by the simulation. Use them after students have explored the model.
Concept Score
Correct first attempts build a streak and unlock higher point multipliers on this device.
0page points
0current streak
x1multiplier
0best streak
Answer each question once to build your streak.
1. What visible evidence indicates damping?
2. What happens to mechanical energy in damping?
3. Why compare successive peaks?
4. Does damping mean the restoring force is absent?
5. What is a strong damping conclusion?
Expert Challenge
Unlocks after 3 correct concept-check answers on this page.
1. What should an expert SHM answer identify in the interactive?
2. What is the best feedback for 'at the endpoint, acceleration is zero because velocity is zero'?
3. How should students compare two SHM runs fairly?
4. What does damping or friction do when included in an oscillation model?
5. What makes the final oscillation conclusion expert-level?
7. Learning Pulse
Anonymous activity shows this resource is being discovered, revisited, and used by learners in different places.
--currently viewing
--total page views
Where Recent Learners Are From
Country or region is inferred anonymously from server location headers when available. No names, accounts, or IP addresses are shown.
Detecting locations...
Updating anonymous page activity...