![]() ![]() If you’re looking to meaningfully bring video games into the classroom, though, SimplePlanes is a great option.įlight simulators are a lot of fun in general, and this one lets players jump right into flying and customizing their planes, with simple-but-great graphics and challenging-but-responsive controls. ![]() Also, many of these concepts are made even more tangible and real to kids with live demonstrations they can actually get their hands on. To make it a stronger educational tool, some physics feedback would be great: The app does all the math on the fly, and if the numbers were shown on-screen, kids could easily connect the physics and real-world events. This makes it great for sandbox-style discovery learning. The app does a good job of explaining controls and plane-construction details and even has a nice guided live tutorial on takeoff and landing, but the rest is entirely up to the player to figure out. There are a number of (mostly aerodynamic) physics concepts that SimplePlanes makes very tangible, including lift, drag, center of mass, yaw, pitch, and roll. You might need to have discussions with learners about the appropriate use of weapons in any work they do, though. Use this before assigning your “build a frisbee-throwing robot” final project as an introduction to the kinds of thinking, iterative processes, trial-and-error, prediction, and collaboration that such work requires. The specifics of aerodynamics might be a stretch for most high school physics classes, but a flight simulator and the prospect of video gaming in class might be enough to hook some kids into getting interested in force vectors, at the very least.įor engineering-flavored physics projects or engineering elective classes, SimplePlanes is a great way to experiment with prototyping and design principles without the mess and material overhead. When discussing centers of mass and motion - and lift, drag, and three-dimensional force generally - you can include this app for some hands-on practice, especially if live demonstrations aren’t practical for some reason. You’ll need to pair SimplePlanes with solid lessons that dive into the mathematics and dynamic systems at play here. ![]()
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