Project Overview

The Northwestern Physics Project is a collaborative research and software-design effort by the departments of Physics and Computer Science at Northwestern University. We are currently developing Goin' Up?, an application that will help the Physics department address the problems they have observed in getting introductory physics students to understand some of the fundamental concepts of Newtonian mechanics.

In this software, the student is placed in the role of a new elevator designer. The student is given the task of designing three different elevators, each of which must meet a different set of requirements. The first scenario, for example, challenges students to build the express elevator to the observation deck of a skyscraper. Students create designs by specifying various properties of the components of the elevator (shown at right). After completing a design, students can test their elevators in a simulation which shows the consequences of their design decisions. When they encounter difficulties (a cable that breaks, an elevator that doesn't move, an elevator that misses its destination floor, etc.), the system will offer supports for analyzing the elevator system and for predicting the behavior of their designs. In addition, students can always ask for demonstrations and explanations of relevant physics principles in a multimedia database.

Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9720663. Any opinions, findings, and Conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Graphing code in Goin' Up? was graciously provided by Bill Rossi of Rossi Engineering.