Question

stackoverflow. I’m a newbie at C++ and I’ve got one last issue with my assignment. I’m trying to write a program that calculates the speed at which an object falls from a base height, and displays that information as the height of the object versus the amount of time (in seconds) that it has been falling. This is the code I have so far:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {

    int acceleration, altitude, time;
    double distance;

    acceleration = 32;
    time = 0;

    printf("What is the altitude you are dropping your object from?\n");
    scanf("%d", &altitude);

    printf("Time    Altitude\n");

    while (altitude > 0){
        distance = ((0.5 * acceleration) * (time * time));
        altitude = altitude - distance;
        printf("%d      %d\n", time, altitude);
        time++;
        if (altitude <= 0){
            altitude = 0;
        }
   }

    return 0;
}

I know the equation for distance is slightly off, but what I’m more concerned about at the moment is that the program does not print out an altitude of 0 when the object hits the ground. Instead, it prints out -104, and since negative distance isn’t achievable, I’d like to fix this.

So my question is this: what is wrong with my while loop/ nested if loop that is causing the program to not print out 0 for the final entry in the table?

Answer 1

Alter the altitude before printing.

while (altitude > 0){
    distance = ((0.5 * acceleration) * (time * time));
    altitude = altitude - distance;
    if (altitude <= 0){
        altitude = 0;
    }
    printf("%d      %d\n", time, altitude);
    time++;
}