The purpose of this paper is to show to the basic university physics instructor and the high school teacher how we can solve interesting kinematic problems with the introduction of a typical pursuit problem. We can discuss this kind of problem in various situations ranging from military applications to applications related to game design. The pursuit of a merchant ship by a pirate ship was the problem chosen as an example. We also discuss a pedagogical approach to this problem, showing as an example how the teacher can simulate this kind of problem using the software Modellus.
Keywords:
pursuit problems; kinematics; simulations with Modellus
