snap effect with beads..

[undesigning]

hallo everybody,
I am desperately trying to achieve a certain "physical" effect but I don't find a way to get starting.
I have a string of beads - that is a movieclip containing several circle-shaped movieclips of different sizes (see screenshot).
This string-MovieClip is dragable in the horizontal direction. In the middel of the stage there is a vertical line that represents a kind of resistance or friction.

What I want to achieve is: by dragging the string-Movieclip over the line, the string-Movieclip shows a soft snap effect - corresponding to the actual bead that touches the line. It's as if the beads snap to the line and than - with a certain amount of force - are set free again.

But it does not have to be too realistic. I dont want all the beads together react at the same time to the snap-event of one bead. It is more like a rigid stick where the beads are placed upon and not a flexible chain.

This kind of pysical effect allows me to scroll through the string and select a desired bead - when I stop dragging, the chain is supposed to stop always width a bead snaped to the centerline.

I hope that was not too confusing and I appreciate every comment or hint. Thanks, J.