Virtual Basketball 1.3

Virtual Basketball 1.3

True-Motion Basketball Match Simulator. Virtual Basketball is a true-motion match simulator designed for learners with an interest in science/math. It models ball movements under varying physical conditions. Virtual are a team's changing gravity and ball friction caused by e.g. wind. Two teams, Red-City Bulls and Blue-City Lakers, are competing against each other, attacking and defending. The defending team uses the Tab and Arrow keys of the keyboard and changes its gravity vector and ball friction with Arrow LEFT ++40 units, Arrow RIGHT --40 units, Arrow UP ++1 unit, Arrow DOWN --1 unit, resulting in a different ball motion. The attacking team uses the mouse to shoot balls by: 1) pressing the left mouse button on the court marking the position of a player, 2) keeping (!) the button down, moving to another position and releasing it giving the ball's speed and direction. As in reality, the motion and result of each shot are computed according to the laws of gravity and friction, and visually displayed on the computer screen. After one team has scored, its gravity vector and ball friction are randomly changed (or manually by the other team) so that it becomes much harder to score again. This is the easy way to play the game. The difficult way is to allow the defending team to change its gravity and friction values all the time. The statistics of both teams, their number of scores and tries as well as the average distances of all shots are automatically recorded and displayed in another window. The goal of this program is to teach a user to understand better 1) how the motion of a ball depends on its position, direction, speed, and friction, 2) how the laws of gravity and friction (the acting forces) effect the movement of a flying object, 3) how motion and forces are interrelated, and 4) how to predict the motion of an object (see the Appendix in the Help file for further information).