[OLPC-GSoC] Physics tutoring system

[Michael Lipschultz]

Hi all,

I'd also like to introduce myself.  My name is Michael Lipschultz, I'm a
first-year grad student in the Computer Science department at the 
University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA.  My interest is in educational 
software and tutoring systems, particularly physics.  As an undergrad, I 
tutored physics for four years (and minored in it) and one problem I 
often noticed was that students had a difficult time translating the 
word problem and the equations into reality.  It wasn't until I showed 
them what they were saying that they realized it was wrong.  For 
example, in the middle of solving a problem on forces and friction, some 
students would tell me that as a book slides on a table, its speed will 
increase.  It wasn't until I actually pushed the book along the table 
that they realized what they were saying!  So, in a nutshell, my idea is 
to design an activity that helps students connect their physics problems 
to reality.

I planned on working on a physics tutoring system when I got my XO, but
soon after getting it, my attention turned to helping those new to Linux 
find their way on the XO.  I did this on the OLPCNews forum [1] (where I 
go by the username moocapiean), primarily helping those trying to get 
Xfce [2] or Ubuntu [3],[4] installed and customized [5].  I also did a 
little to help out those with disabilities find [6] and install [7] 
software to make their XOs easier to use.

As much as I've enjoyed that work, I'd like to get back the physics
tutoring system.  Some ideas I have for that are:

1. Present the student with a word problem, a workspace for them to 
write their equations, variables, and values into, and an animation that 
depicts the situation (either the goal or the situation described by 
their workspace).
   a. I'm not sure that all of this can fit on the screen at the same 
time, so maybe different views would be helpful.
   b. Instead of a text-based workspace, it'd be nice if it was 
friendlier...something more graphical...I'm thinking of something like 
Turtle Art for physics equations.
     i. Graphical workspace will probably use up even more screen space, 
so maybe a graphical workspace in one view, which will be translated 
into an "equation" view in others.

2. Design a sequence of mini-games that give the learners a chance to 
learn physics in a more implicit manner.  Instead of burdening the kids 
with equations and numbers, create small games that give them some 
experience with physics.  One example I'm thinking of right now is a 
shooting an arrow through a hoop.  Through trial and error, they may 
begin to learn about projectile motion without actually working through 
the equations.
   a. Perhaps showing the equations on screen (with the values they 
"entered" by moving items around in the game) or even allowing them to 
use the equations instead of trial and error.

I'm not sure whether any of these ideas (in the form described above) 
are achievable during the summer, but I'd be interested in any feedback 
anyone has, about the educational value, the implementation 
details/problems, or anything else!

I only recently discovered Elements (thanks to the Summer of Code ideas 
page), but I played with it a bit during the weekend.  From the 
activities I ran, it feels ready to be used, but I couldn't find a TODO 
list anywhere other than the SoC Ideas page.  I also tried to find the 
#elements channel on irc.freenode.net over the weekend, but 
couldn't...does it still exist?  Was I just missing it?  Does Elements 
fully support everything Box2D supports?

So, I'm looking for a mentor interested in working with me on the 
physics tutoring system, or even just improving Elements if it's not 
ready yet.  I'm most familiar with programming in C/C++, but I've been 
playing around with python the past few months.

Thanks,
Mike[8]


[1] http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php
[2] http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=592.msg4748#msg4748
     (and many more in that thread)
[3] http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=1436.0
     See also:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Installing_Ubuntu_using_Compressed_Files
[4] http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=1435.0
[5] http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2240.0
     See also: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Customizing_Ubuntu_for_XO
[6] http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=65.msg8483#msg8483
     (and others in that thread)
[7] http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2063.msg16256#msg16256
     (and many more in that thread)
[8] http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~lipschultz/