Motion Diagrams

A motion diagram is like a series of freeze-frames from a movie of what's happening.

1. Draw the representation of the object at several times during the interval you're analyzing. Usually, you just need to draw a dot to represent it.
2. Draw position-change vectors; arrows that go from a dot to the next dot in the sequence. These represent the change in position of the object from one frame to the next.
3. Draw the velocity-change vectors; put a position-change vector ($v_1$) tail-to-tail with the next position-change vector ($v_2$), then draw another vector that connects the point of $v_1$ to the point of $v_2$.

• Position-change vectors are velocity vectors
• Velocity-change vectors are acceleration vectors