[OLPC library] [OLPC-Games] [sugar] Physics -- Newtonian mechanics.. for kids!

[Yoshiki Ohshima]

At Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:22:32 -0400,
Chris Leonard wrote:
> 
>      I'm just wrapping up the extension to the Etoys' sensor input
>     capability to support the direct input mode.
>    
>      So, another alternative is to have two Etoys objects in the same
>     Etoys project, and have one driven by the simulation and another by
>     the sensor input side by side.
> 
> One wants to be careful not to take this too far, throwing one XO emitting a pure tone at high speed past another XO
> displaying the waveform should definitely NOT make it into the lesson plan on the Doppler effect.  Very educational, but
> tough on the hardware.

  Hmm, I don't quite understand from where the Doppler effect topic
came into the discussion, but...

> I recommend a whistle blown by someone sitting on the playpump merry-go-round ( http://www.playpumps.org ) instead, that
> way you get clean water pumped at the same time.

  Heh, that would probably give something like 1-2% variation (yes?).
It should be measurable and that whistle can be an XO, even.

  I now realized that I don't understand your first example (what is
the physical parameter and what is the pendulum breaking a light
beam), but if it is just a swinging pendulum, that would be a good
example for simulation.

  Just FYI, Etoys already has the sensor widget (it didn't support the
direct input mode yet) and there are bunch of projects done with it
(see http://swikis.ddo.jp/WorldStethoscope/2 or the translation of
it).

-- Yoshiki