Michelle K Livett, School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic 3052, Australia. Phone +61 3 9344 8071 Fax: +61 3 9347 4783 Email: michelle_livett@mac.unimelb.edu.au
The Web was chosen as a delivery method due to its "any time, any place, any platform" offerings. This was considered important for the usual pragmatic reasons, but also because we want students to be able to take out of the lab or lecture theatre some of the experiences that traditionally get left behind as they leave: demonstrations that are worth revisiting in their own time; practical experiences that fly by in a blur during the usual frenzy of an afternoon laboratory session as well as the wealth of real-world examples of physics in action.
The software comprises three parts: an HTML "front-end" which introduces
several student assignments and presents some of the physics theory. This is
followed by a complex Java-coded analysis tool in which students will analyse
videos of real-life physics, carry out spreadsheet modelling and explore
graphs and vector representation of motions. Finally students are given an
opportunity to "interview" on-screen a person involved in the video in order
to explore how that person views their actions in relation to the physics
being presented.
Since, at present, most of the current effort is being put into the Java-coded
analysis tool, only that part is being presented in detail in this poster.
The QuickTime video display enables students to choose a video from a
pre-recorded set and analyse the motion of objects by clicking on the location
of the objects on each frame of the video. These data are stored in a
spreadsheet (also part of the Java applet) and are linked so that future
editing of these points, by dragging with the mouse, will cause the values in
the spreadsheet to update.
The spreadsheet is set up to record the video data as three-dimensional
vectors (although the third dimension is not used for video information). Once
these data are entered, the spreadsheet can be instructed to display kinematic
vectors (position, velocity and acceleration) superimposed onto the video
display. Other quantities, such as momentum, energy, etc., can be derived from
these data by the use of spreadsheet formulas that the student enters. These
derived quantities can be displayed on a graph or within the vector display
area (see below).
An innovative aspect of this spreadsheet is that, in addition to its ability to carry out conventional spreadsheet operations, it accommodates three-dimensional data. That is, the vector information is stored as x-y-z components and functions are built into the spreadsheet to perform vector operations. All three dimensions come into play for vector operations. For example, the vector cross-product transforms inputs in the x-y plane into a vector in the z-direction. This is important for the study of rotational motion and that of electric charges moving through magnetic fields. Inclusion of features such as vector operations make this spreadsheet much more powerful for science-type modelling than a traditional financial spreadsheet.
The output of the spreadsheet can be displayed on a graph in a conventional
manner. However, it can also be displayed as a set of 3-d vectors located in
the x-y-z coordinate system. This means that students can analyse a video,
calculate vector quantities such as force, momentum, torque, etc. and then see
these vectors displayed as a sequence of arrows in order to help visualise the
relations between them. The vector display allows students to view these
vectors in three ways: located at the position of the object whose motion is
modelled; in a time sequence across the screen; or collected with their tails
coincident at a point. The vector display can be rotated in order to obtain
different views of these 3-d vectors.
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