Learning Electromagnetism through a playful fair-game project

TL;DR

This paper presents a playful, project-based learning activity where students build a High Striker game prototype to actively learn electromagnetism and mechanics concepts in an engaging undergraduate physics course.

Contribution

It introduces an innovative, hands-on educational approach combining game design with physics concepts to enhance student engagement and understanding.

Findings

Students actively engaged in learning electromagnetism and mechanics.

The project improved understanding of Faraday and Lenz laws.

Enhanced soft skills through collaborative project work.

Abstract

Project/problem-based learning, as an active methodology, improves significantly the learning process, making students take an active role in the construction of their own knowledge, and at the same time, develop soft and social skills that are critical in the success of their student career and professional field. In this work, an entertaining game project based on an introductory undergraduate physics course is presented, in which students build an experimental prototype based on a traditional fair-game, High Striker. To fulfill the requirements of the project, students need to use mainly electromagnetism concepts such as laws of Faraday and Lenz, induced electromotive force; and classical mechanics physics concepts such as energy conservation and collisions.