Angular motion diagram

The purpose of an angular motion diagram is to understand the relationship between the angular position (q) the angular velocity (w) and the angular acceleration (a).


Steps:

  1. Pick a point on the edge and mark its position at equal time intervals.   Then draw a line from those points to the center.  You should have pie wedges that are a constant size for a constant rotation, are increasing for something that is speeding up, and decreasing for something that is slowing down.
  2. Draw angular velocity vectors (labeled with w) to show the direction it is rotating and roughly how fast.
  3. Draw an angular acceleration vector (labeled with a) to show the direction it is accelerating (same as w for speeding up, zero for constance rotation, and opposite w for slowing down.)