Online 3D physics simulation platform with movie/game quality graphics to engage students in national science education standard concepts

This project will expand the development of the author’s online 3D physics platform. Our platform provides students with the power to create highly engaging experiments and simulations that could never be duplicated in the classroom. The platform allows teachers and students to choose objects and animals, arrange them in a 3D scene, and set up experiments to explore National Science Standard (NSS) Concepts. Phase I will fund the development of toolkits to explore Newton’s Laws, Projectile Motion, and Solar System Physics. Phase II will expand the development further to include NSS concepts in all areas of science including biology, chemistry, modern physics, and nanotechnology. The platform provides 3D movie/game quality graphics never seen before in educational software. Technical highlights include: • Highly engaging scenes and objects including animated animal characters. • Control over every physics parameter — gravity, mass, friction, velocity, acceleration. • Cameras that track and follow simulation objects • The ability for students to create custom controls for their simulations. • A graphing program to explore mathematical representations of physics phenomena. • A programmable behavior engine which will allow students to create highly complex simulations such as combustion or ecosystem simulations with less than 10 lines of code.