Video Games as a
Lesson Vehicle
When it
comes to video games, it's fairly easy to find one with a physics engine or
foundation. Whether it's playing
something like Civiballs or Crush the Castle (That's right, Angry Birds), Many
use a basic projectile motion as the means of completion. Mix in a little momentum for pushing objects
over and you have a solid fun time.
While everyone has had exposure to throwing rocks, understand how
distance applies to certain forces is not quite so much. That's why I think that some games can help
to give students an awareness and intuitive sense about that with which they
may not have any first hand experience.
My
preferred example is the game
Magnetized by RockyBrickGames. The goal of the game
is to guide a steadily moving block through gradually more complex mazes by
activating magnets to pull the block closer or redirect the path. The truth of the matter is that this may give
students the impression that monopoles exist, but that can be addressed as a
mind-bending follow-up. For now though,
we can use this as a demonstration for monopoled forces like gravity or
Electricity.
The inverse
squared law is the non-intuitive feature that students need to grasp. To succeed, students have to grasp that the
closer the block is to the "magnetized" point, the more force is
exerted on it which results in a quicker turn time. Additionally, if you are trying to course
correct after release, you come to recognize how much the force drops off at a
great distance, so great changes can't be made quickly at a distance.
How useful could it
be?
While there
are other great games for teaching a similar method using gravity, I have not
run across many for magnetism or electric charge. I do not think that something like this could
replace a lesson on the inverse square laws but could give students something
more "concrete" to base their mental models on. By giving this kind of "force
sense" with these non-intuitive concepts, students should be better
enabled to visualize and to check answers for intuitive senses of
correctness.
Nathan, I'll just say that there's a MACer named Tom Ward who teaches Math at the Greenhills School here in town. I don't know whether he did it last year, but the year before he built a very interesting class activity around Angry Birds, with students building devices that emulated some of what goes on in the game, and calculating the angles needed to project things, engaging in prediction, etc. If time permits, we may invite Tom to speak to our class, but if not (and if this interests you) let me know and I can facilitate a contact for you.
ReplyDeleteNathan- What an interesting post! I have to admit I spent a few weeks trying to beat EVERY level of Angry Birds a few years ago. Who knew I was learning physics?! :) I had physics in high school and undergrad and would have loved some physics games to at least practice with the difficult concepts. It tends to be a very dry subject so allowing kids to play games or teaching them how games they already play have physics concepts in them is a great idea!
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad that I wait until I had finished all the reading and homework for tomorrow before I looked at your blog. Magnetized is addicting; I'm going to have to block that website. Really the game illustrates one of the great features about games: the ability to fail and not be defeated. I lost twenty lives on Level 12, but with each one of them I learned something (Too fast that time, too slow the next time, so close, etc.).
ReplyDeletePhysics labs have seem like they have a great potential for gaming-as-learning. You can turn projectile motion labs into games where students try to hit a target or conservation of momentum problems into a game where the students guess where the car will stop rolling.
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ReplyDeleteYou've done a great job at describing the goal of the game. I have no idea what the "inverse square law" is but it sounds rather Newtonian? As a visual learner, I'm sure play-based games such as this one would help me conceptualize the laws of the universe. Learning can be at once both fun and interactive. May the force be with you!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you have a good grasp of how physics can be “gamified.” In one of your later posts, you seem to suggest that you are wary of “gamifying” the entire structure of a class, but I wonder what your hesitations are about this? You do such a great job explaining how physics is found in so many of the fun games we’re familiar with, so I wonder how this could be applied to your classroom over the course of the whole year. I always found my physics teachers the most creative because there were always ways to demonstrate how the concepts applied to our everyday lives. This could help you engage students and make their learning relevant with real-life applications. Thanks for a great post!
ReplyDelete__Well, Anna, I guess I'm a little cautious about being an early adopter of the whole concept. I can see how you can use these games to give students a developed intuitive sense about these things, but I guess I'm a little incredulous at how I could apply this same concept for learning the equations and prediction. I use incredulous specifically to denote that I don't know how someone would do it, not to deny that it is possible. I just don't immediately see it.
Delete__I do think that these demonstrations are a field ripe to have games reap their fill. Rather than being observers, students can become those who interact with the demos. There people that complain about physics and say they aren't any good because of the math, but so much of physics is getting a sense of what can happen by the rules of our universe. I do think that games can break through this math barrier and tunnel to an understanding of the concepts and help break down that wall from both sides. Maybe it's idealistic, but it might just work.