Ramp n' Roll was created in 1995 by Mihara Naoki and is hosted here with permission. Here the story of Ramp n' Roll in episode 153 of Lab Out Loud.
Here is a worksheet that I used with my students when using Ramp n' Roll. Enjoy! -Dale Basler
UPDATE (9/18/2016) Some schools have reported having trouble running the Ramp n' Roll JAVA applet. These are settings that are on your school's computers. You may need to work with your IT department to get Ramp n' Roll working. If you cannot get it to work, consider turning to an alternative like Super Ultimate Graphing Challenge.
UPDATE (8/9/2019) I fear that Ramp n' Roll has gone the way of the wax cylinder, betamax tapes, and Zip drives. While Ramp n' Roll still works, it is getting harder and harder to find a browser that will still "play" the this tool since it is a JAVA applet. JAVA applets were depreciated in 2017 and most browsers began to phase out support in 2013. If anyone would like to volunteer to rewrite Ramp n' Roll into something like HTML5 so it will work again, let me know. We might be able to host the replacement.
Ramp n'Roll was developed to assist introductory physics students understand the simple motion of ball rolling on a ramp. Its unique user friendly interface helps student with ease of use for usually complex and complicated subjects. Students can change the height of the poles and the planks simply by dragging the mouse to their desired positions. The initial conditions of the ball can also be easily changed by moving the pointers for the initial position and initial velocity to the respective numbers. Then the applet automatically calculates and graphs the positon, velocity and acceleration of the ball all in real time while the ball is rolling.
- Ball rolls down and up the ramp of different height according to the physical laws.
- The height of the planks change by dragging the poles by mouse
- The initial velocity and the initial position of the ball can be adjusted
- Three different types of graphs can be draw:(Position vs Time, Velocity vs. Time, Acceleration vs. Time)
- Draw your own graph to test your ablity of physics
Start Ramp'n Roll
***NOTE: Most browsers do not support Java Applets so
it is unlikely that Ramp n' Roll will work on your computer.
How to Use Ramp'n Roll 1.2 |
 Press this button to change conditions.(height of planks, intial position and velocity) |
 Press this when done changing. |
 Press this to start the ball rolling. |
 Press this to stop the ball rolling. |
 Press this to reset the ball to initial position. |
 Press this to clear the graph. |
 Press this to show Postion vs. Time graph. |
 Press this to show Velocity vs. Time graph. |
 Press this to show Acceleration vs. Time graph. |
 Press this to draw graph manually. |
 Press this to end drawing graph manually. |
 Press this to draw lines. |
 Press this to draw parabolas. |
 Press this to undo drawing. |