An Overview of NewtonWorld

NewtonWorld provides an environment for investigating the kinematics and dynamics of one-dimensional motion. NewtonWorld is intended for exploration of Newton's Laws of Motion as well as the conservation of both kinetic energy and linear momentum. In NewtonWorld, students spend time in and around an activity area, which is an open "corridor" created by a colonnade on each side and a wall at each end. In one-dimension along the axis of the corridor, two balls move and rebound from each other and the walls. See Figure 1. For other images from NewtonWorld, please visit our NewtonWorld Images page.

Students interact with NewtonWorld using a "virtual hand" and a menu system, which they access by selecting a small 3Ball icon in the upper left corner of the headmounted display's (HDM) display. Learners can launch and catch balls of various masses and can "beam" from the ball into and among cameras strategically placed around the corridor. The balls move in one dimension along the corridor, rebounding when they collide with each other or the walls. Equal spacing of the columns and lines on the floor of the corridor aid learners in judging distance and speed. Signs on the walls indicate the presence or absence of gravity and friction.

Multisensory cues help students experience phenomena and direct their attention to important factors such as mass, velocity, and energy. For example, potential energy is made salient through tactile and visual cues, and velocity through auditory and visual cues. Currently, the presence of potential energy before launch is represented by a tightly coiled spring, as well as vibrations in a special vest users wear that communicates haptic sensations. As the ball is launched and potential energy becomes kinetic energy, the spring uncoils and the energy vibrations cease. The balls now begin to cast "shadows" whose areas are directly proportional to the amount of kinetic energy associated with each ball. On impact, when kinetic energy is instantly changed to potential energy and then back to kinetic energy again, the shadows disappear and the vest briefly vibrates.

To aid students in judging the velocities of the balls relative to one another, we have the columns light and chime as the balls pass. Additionally, we provide multiple representations of phenomena by allowing students to assume the sensory perspectives of various objects in the world. For example, students can become one of the balls in the corridor, a camera attached to the center-of-mass of the bouncing balls, or a movable camera hovering above the corridor.

To guide the learning process, we provide scaffolding that enables learners to advance from basic to more advanced activities. Students begin their guided inquiry in a world without gravity or friction, allowing them to perceive physics phenomena that are otherwise obscured by these forces. They can launch and catch balls of various masses and can view the collisions from several viewpoints. These activities provide an immersive experience of often counter-intuitive phenomena. By instructing students to make predictions about upcoming events, directly experience them, and then explain what they experienced, we encourage learners to question their intuitions and refine their mental models. We have developed detailed human subjects protocols that lead students through a progressive sequence of learning activities, carefully documenting their knowledge before and after these experiences.

For more information about NewtonWorld or Project ScienceSpace, please visit the Research Studies web page.