A-Level Physics Simulator

An interactive JavaFX simulation tool designed to support secondary school science learning by making abstract mechanics concepts visual, testable, and discussion-friendly.

Project scope and goals

Educational scope

This project targets learners in a secondary school setting (including A-Level / upper secondary classes) and supports teachers with a visual demonstration environment for core physics ideas.

Core goals

• Turn difficult-to-visualise concepts (motion, force, acceleration, and orbit-like interactions) into visible behaviour.
• Encourage inquiry-based learning: students can ask "what happens if…" and immediately test ideas.
• Bridge maths and physics by showing numeric values (position, velocity, acceleration, force) alongside motion.
• Provide a classroom-friendly simulation loop with pause, speed control, and step-by-step updates.

Current functional scope

The current implementation includes:

• A 2D simulation plane with particles/celestial bodies.
• Real-time rendering of moving bodies and their trails.
• Keyboard controls for pausing, slowing/speeding time, resetting speed, and frame stepping.
• Live info panel values for selected particle state.

Use case guide (secondary school)

1) Teacher-led demonstration: "What is orbit-like motion?"

Lesson objective: Connect force and velocity direction to curved trajectories.

Suggested flow:

1. Run the app with default bodies.
2. Ask students to predict the path before unpausing.
3. Use Space to pause at key moments and discuss vectors.
4. Use , and . to slow down/speed up time so students can observe changes.
5. Use Right Arrow to advance frame-by-frame while discussing the force readout.

Discussion prompts:

• Why does the object keep changing direction?
• Is speed constant while velocity changes?
• How does the force direction compare with path curvature?

2) Student inquiry activity: "Cause and effect in motion"

Lesson objective: Build scientific reasoning from observation.

Students can:

• Observe trails as evidence of past motion.
• Compare acceleration and force outputs over time.
• Form hypotheses (e.g., "higher mass means less acceleration under same force") and test by editing initial conditions in PhysicsApp.java.

3) Assessment support

Use the simulator as a quick formative assessment:

• Pause and ask students to estimate direction of velocity/force.
• Step one frame and verify against displayed values.
• Ask for short written explanations linking equations to the simulation.

Controls

• Space: Pause / Resume
• ,: Slow down simulation time (×0.5)
• .: Speed up simulation time (×2)
• /: Reset speed to 1×
• Right Arrow: Step forward one frame
• Left Arrow: Step backward one frame

Setup instructions

Prerequisites

• JDK 25 (project is configured with source/target 25 in Maven).
• Maven installed locally (mvn).

1) Clone repository

git clone https://github.com/TrebleZee/A-Level-Physics-Simulator
cd A-Level-Physics-Simulator

2) Build the project

3) Run the simulator

4) Adjust simulation scenario (optional)

To create custom classroom scenarios, edit particle initial values in:

• src/main/java/com/rober/physicssim/PhysicsApp.java

For example, you can change:

• initial positions (x, y)
• initial velocities (vx, vy)
• mass and radius

Then rebuild/run to test the new setup.

Suggested classroom implementation

• Start with a 5-minute demonstration.
• Move into pair-based prediction tasks.
• Use frame-step mode for whole-class reasoning.
• End with an "explain the motion" reflection using displayed physics quantities.

Roadmap ideas

Potential improvements that align with the educational goal:

• UI controls for adding/changing particles without editing code.
• Preset scenarios (projectile motion, circular motion, gravitational systems).
• Data export for graphing (position-time, velocity-time).
• Guided worksheets integrated with simulator tasks.

Contributing

Contributions that improve pedagogy, usability, or scientific accuracy are welcome. Please open an issue describing:

• the educational need,
• the proposed change,
• and how it can be validated in classroom use.