In the January 2007 issue of "The Physics Teacher," Prentis, Fulton, Hesse, and Mazzino describe a laboratory exercise in which students use a geometrical analysis inspired by Newton to show that an elliptical orbit and an inverse-square law force go hand in hand. The historical, geometrical, and teamwork aspects of the exercise are useful and important. This paper presents an exercise which uses an energy/angular momentum conservation model for elliptical orbits. This exercise can be done easily by an individual student and on regular notebook-sized paper.