Projectile Motion Assessment Task

You are a game designer for Rovio Entertainment, the company that makes Angry Birds.  The human resources department wants your input. They are hiring several programmers to build the physics engine for Rovio’s newest game. Here are the demo videos from the top four applicants. Which applicant(s) would you recommend for hire?

Applicant A

Applicant B

Applicant C

Applicant D

Download the original video files for analysis in Logger Pro or Tracker.

These videos were not created by me. I found them online several years ago, but I can’t remember where. If anyone knows, please tell me so I can give the creator proper credit. Thanks!

My TEDxNYED Session: Learning Science by Doing Science

Many thanks to the TEDxNYED 2012 crew, especially True Life Media, Basil Kolani, Karen Blumberg, and Matthew Moran for an awesome event. Be sure to check out the rest of the TEDxNYED 2012 talks.

Learn more about Modeling Instruction in Science.

Physics of Angry Birds Lesson on CUNY-TV

Many thanks to Ernabel Demillo and the crew of Science and U!

You can read more about how we use Angry Birds in class here:
Angry Birds in the Physics Classroom

Physics Teaching 2.Uh-Oh

My first talk! Given at the STANYS 2011 Physics Breakfast on November 8th, 2011 in Rochester, New York

Links to resources mentioned in the talk:

• Feynman’s blackboard at his death
• Hake’s “Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses“
• Bowling Ball & Mallet exploration
• Whiteboarding
• Modeling Instruction
• Tug of war on Slip ‘N’ Slide video
• PhET Simulations
• Angry Birds in the Physics Classroom
• Instant feedback with orange pens
• Doxie scanner - educator’s price
• Worked Examples and Practice
• Standards-based Grading
• Active Grade and Blue Harvest online SBG gradebooks
• Blogs –> Check the side bar!
• Physics teachers on Twitter
• Global Physics Department

A huge thank you to Gene Gordon for inviting me to speak at the breakfast. It was great to share my passions and meet my virtual colleagues face-to-face!

I’d love any feedback you have, positive and negative. Thanks!

Angry Birds in the Physics Classroom

I recently blogged that you can now play Angry Birds in your web browser. This opens up all sorts of video analysis possibilities for physics lessons and assessment. Students can easily make their own videos or you can pre-record your own. Videos can be recorded using Jing, Screencast-O-Matic, or Camtasia Studio. Analysis can be done in Logger Pro or Tracker.

Here are some possible investigations to carry out (shared by Michael Magnuson on the WNYPTA email list):

1. Make a reasonable estimate for the size of an angry bird, and determine the value of g in Angry Bird World. Why would the game designer want to have g be different than 9.8 m/s²?   Download Angry Birds video.

2. Does the blue angry bird conserve momentum during its split into three?  Download Red and Blue Birds video.

3. Does the white bird conserve momentum when it drops its bomb? Why would the game designer want the white bird to drop its bomb the way that it does?  Download White Bird video.

4. Describe in detail how the yellow bird changes velocity.  You will need to analyze more than one flight path to answer this question.  Download Yellow Birds video.

5. Shoot an angry bird so that it bounces off one of the blocks. Determine the coefficient of restitution and the mass of the angry bird.  Download Red Birds and Falling Block video.

You can download each video using the links above or get them all here.

Other posts with ideas about how to use Angry Birds in physics class:

• Rhett Allain’s analysis of The Physics of Angry Birds.
• John Burk’s post Introducing projectile motion using Angry Birds
• Peter Kupfer’s post Angry Birds and Physics

How have you used (or will use) Angry Birds in the classroom?

UPDATE 12-28-2011: Our class has been featured on CUNY-TV’s “Science and U!” Jump to 10:25 in the video below:

Red, Blue, and Yellow Angry Birds

Download the original video files:

• Red Birds and Falling Block
• Red and Blue Birds
• Yellow Birds

Angry Birds for Google Chrome

You can now play Angry Birds in Google Chrome! This makes getting footage for video analysis much easier. Here you go:

Download the video file for your own analysis. I used Camtasia Studio (free trial) to do the screen recording.

Enjoy!