Use the simulation of a Newton metre in your science or Physics class to illustrate elastic potential energy and Hooke’s law.
It’s a 3D interactive of the AQA GCSE Physics required practical on force and extension (Hooke’s law). Pupils work through the real procedure on a virtual lab bench: clamp a spring to a retort stand, set a vertical ruler beside it, read the natural (unloaded) length, then hang 100 g masses one at a time, reading the extension against the ruler after each. An on-screen pointer shows exactly where to tap or drag at each stage, and a live “e = … cm” bracket makes clear that extension is measured from the natural length, not from zero.
Once all seven masses are on, the simulation moves to a reckoning screen: it plots the force–extension graph point by point, draws a best-fit line through the straight region, and works out the spring constant k = F ÷ e as the gradient. Crucially, the graph bends to the right past the limit of proportionality (after 5 masses, at 4.90 N) — the points where the spring stretches more than Hooke’s law predicts. That bend is the whole teaching point.
There are two selectable springs (soft, k = 25 N/m; stiff, k = 40 N/m) so pupils can compare stiffness. The full Adapt accessibility suite is built in — Irlen overlays, colour-blind filters, reading ruler, dyslexia spacing, text scaling, high-contrast and dark themes, reduce-motion, and a buttons-only mode for pupils who can’t drag.
Suggested class activity
“Two springs, one law” — a compare-and-explain investigation (roughly one lesson):
Put pupils in pairs, one running the soft spring and one the stiff. As they add each mass, they record force and extension in a shared table, then swap devices halfway so each has handled both. Ask them to plot both sets on the same axes (or screenshot the simulation’s graphs side by side) and answer three questions: which spring has the larger k and how the graph shows it; what “spring constant” physically means in their own words; and what happens at the limit of proportionality and why the line stops being straight there.
The payoff is a class discussion drawing out that a steeper line means a stiffer spring (larger k), that k is the gradient of only the straight part, and that beyond the limit of proportionality F is no longer proportional to e. A neat extension task: give pupils a target force and have them predict the extension using F = k × e before checking it on the simulation — reversing the calculation cements the relationship.
For a plenary or exit ticket, ask them to sketch from memory what a force–extension graph looks like and mark the limit of proportionality — a quick check of the single most examined idea in this topic.