Balanced and Unbalanced Forces

When sitting on a chair, the force of gravity pulls you downwards, towards Earth. A support force from your chair acts upwards and balances the downwards force of gravity.

​Balanced forces don’t always mean that the object is stopped: it might be travelling at the same speed without changing directions.

Balanced Forces

Follow these steps on the next page:

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1. Drag one small blue figure and one small red figure onto the rope.
2. Press "Go!" when you are ready to run the interactive.
3. Press the orange reset button in the right-hand corner to start again.

A force that doesn't have an equal and opposite force acting on the same object is called an unbalanced force.

When the forces acting on an object are not balanced then the object's motion will change.

Unbalanced Forces

The image on the right shows two small figures pulling left and one small figure pulling right.

The arrows indicate that the forces are opposite but unequal.

Predict what will happen...

Use the interactive on the next slide to change the arrangement of the figures.

This time you must create an unbalanced force that moves the trolley to the right.

​Show me when you're done!