Physics by Design
Every year, the eighth graders in my Physics by Design classes at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts build “snail cars,” geared-down snails that move as slowly as possible. At the end of the project, we stage a snail race. The race turns out not to be much of a race. Because the snails are so geared down, the motors all spin, but none of the snails actually moves. As part of the project, each student calculates the number of times the snail’s motor would need to turn in order for the wheels to turn once. In the slowest snail that my students have produced, the motor would have to turn 6.6 x 1049 times.
These students are doing an engineering project while applying what they have learned about gear ratios, velocity, and torque. Using the concepts in an actual design reinforces them more effectively than completing any number of problem sets. In addition, the students have fun building their snails and feel a considerable sense of accomplishment when they successfully complete the challenge.
I have found that combining robotics with a traditional physics course is a powerful way of engaging students. My course, Physics by Design, teaches classical mechanics through an engineering perspective, with robotics projects reinforcing the conceptual physics material and vice versa. Most of the projects in the course are done using LEGO materials, including the programmable Mindstorms NXT. We program it using ROBOLAB, an icon-based programming language. The course was inspired by the work of the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach at Tufts University, which is committed to bringing engineering into the K-12 classroom.
Throughout the year, we do a variety of robotics projects. Some, such as data-logging rotation sensors on NXT cars and generating graphs from the resulting data, are used to study physics concepts such as velocity and acceleration. Other projects, such as building music boxes and robotic animals, allow the students to use what they have learned in a creative way. Still other projects explore topics in robotics, such as using conditional probability to help robots navigate, which are usually not part of a middle-school curriculum.
Last year I gave my students a survey about the various aspects of the Physics by Design course—the discussions, problem sets, projects, and so on. Which piece did they find most fun? Unsurprisingly, they all said the projects. Which component of the course was most valuable in helping them to learn the concepts? Rather to my surprise, they overwhelmingly answered that the projects had taught them the most. I had always thought of the projects as a means of engaging the interest of the students, but they were finding them the most useful way of learning the material as well. So, I hope that the robotics projects we do give the kids a deeper understanding of physics—and a love of physics and robotics as well.
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