Teaching PRojectile Motion
Parabolic Basketball
I supervised this work of a Master's student where we designed a videogame for college teaching of the physical concept called projectile motion. Our proposal was based on user-centered design and videogame design to engage students with problem-solving activities in a game-like environment making learning more exciting and enjoyable for them.
Training scene
We design several GeoGebra simulations of the basketball ball followwing a projectile motion. These equations and trajectories of the ball were placed as gifs in the conceptual explanation part of the training scene.
Main scene
The players are transported to a basketball court and have to perform ball shooting from different positions to earn points and win the game. A correct ball shooting requires calibration of angles and velocity by the student, that is why the videogame performs constant feedback of the kinematics of the shooting
Pilot study to prove the feasibility of using the videogame as pedagogical tool
We tested the videogame in a pilot study with 17 student from the local university (Universidad Tecnologica de Pereira), who where coursing the subject Physics I and received the basics of the projectile motion concept. The videogame was deployed in a Oculus quest 2 and the students played once.
Based on the questionnaires we applied (VRQN and science motivation) and a physics test before and after the playing session, we found our videogame was feasible to foster the learning process of the projectile motion concept and engaged students on its understanding and learning.
