Impulse

Propel particles, avoiding destruction as you make your way to the goal. Take it fast, take it slow, just don’t crash! Impulse, a blended-genre physics game designed for the web and mobile devices, is part of an NSF-funded research study to look for empirical evidence of learning fundamental high-school STEM content in games. We are using Impulse to test our assumption that we will be able to measure the development of players’ tacit understanding of forces at a distance and Newton’s Laws if we immerse them in a game where they must accurately predict Newtonian motion in order to succeed. As the game increases in difficulty through the introduction of additional particles and forces, players need to develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding about particles’ behaviors in order to be able to predict their motions and safely navigate the player particle to the goal.