Learning difficult physics subjects using Gadgeteer EDU

Physics is a subject that requires a lot of creative thinking and experimentation. Both can be enhanced by using VR in your classroom!

But the thought of using VR might scare some teachers. Do I need to be technically experienced? Do I need to understand programming? To put your mind at ease: both answers are a big no!

The attached lesson plan and student worksheet provide a complete physics lesson which embodies the following subjects:

• Gravity

• Potential energy

• Kinetic energy

• Elasticity

These subjects can be difficult to explain to students without visual aid. What better visual aid than VR! This lesson plan guide requires no technical experience. Just use the VR Expert education kits, print out the Student work sheets and you are ready to go!

I can promise you that after using this lesson plan, you might even try to come up with new ideas to use Gadgeteer for your physics class. The subjects provided in this lesson are just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what other things students can get to learn when they use VR.

About the Gadgeteer EDU app

Gadgeteer EDU is a physics based chain reaction puzzle game. In puzzle mode, students need to use their problem solving skills to determine how to finish certain Rube Goldberg machines. 

Students get a limited amount of objects they need to correctly place in order to make sure the kinetic energy is transferred to the end goal. This might mean something as simple as placing dominoes, all the way to using catapults, pulleys, gears etc.

One of the key factors that make this app so effective is the ability to learn while experimenting. Students need to use their problem solving skills to figure out certain physics problems. 

Why Gadgeteer EDU is so effective for educational use

The main reason this app is so effective has everything to do with gamification. This means that the use of puzzles and different levels of difficulty ensures that the student gets motivated to learn more in order to finish the levels.

This app and lesson plan is focused on students in secondary education (age 11-14), where physics is a relatively new subject. The great thing about using VR to introduce students to these abstract subjects is that they interact with the theory themselves and discover the definitions without having to look them up in their textbooks!

The included lesson plan describes a complete introductory lesson of 60 minutes on the aforementioned physics subjects. This lesson plan can easily be adapted to shorter or even longer lessons by increasing the amount of time spent in VR. 

In the included work sheet, students select the physics subject responsible for something happening in-game. The great thing is, even if they select the wrong answer, they will have thought about an explanation of said physics subject which will be on the whiteboard anyway! This means that even if they get it wrong, students still feel like they achieved the goal of learning.

A physics teacher said, after trying this lesson plan: “Students are going to love this way of learning, because they feel both in control and they feel a sense of pride.” Because students can connect existing knowledge and discoveries in the app, they are able to create the definition themselves. 

Every teacher can agree that students learn more from experiencing and discovering than reading in a book!

Classroom logistics

The app used in this lesson plan is called Gadgeteer and is included in the standard and pro version of our VR Education kit. The supported languages are: English, Chinese (China, Hongkong or Taiwan), Danish, German, French, Japanese, Korean and Spanish (Mexico).

This lesson plan is based on splitting the classroom in teams of two. This means that at a maximum, you need 16 VR sets. Most classrooms already have the students’ tables in sets of two, so that makes setting this up very easy. Make sure that each set of tables has one charged VR set. 

Your classroom should already be equipped with a whiteboard. Most of these have the ability to flip around, use this to your advantage! This means that the definitions of the 4 subjects can be hidden from the students and be revealed after students discuss their own explanations.

Experimentation and other tips

This lesson plan is completely based on using the sandbox mode, but make no mistake: allowing the students to use the regular puzzles is a great reward for a job well done!

In my honest opinion, letting a full class of 32 students play the puzzles all at once without a connection to relevant theory is not an effective way of learning. The puzzles themselves are a great challenge, but using the objects in sandbox mode and connecting these objects to relevant theory make for an effective lesson experience.

If the class did a job well done, you could use the (experimental) mixed-reality mode to get students to build a Rube Goldberg machine on your teachers table. Set the start at one end of your table, and the finish somewhere else. With casting, the entire class can watch as students take turns placing objects to reach the finish line. Give each student a maximum of 1 minute to place objects before handing the VR set to another student. By setting a time limit of for example 5 minutes, it becomes quite the challenge.