Frequently Asked Questions

Physics Geeks is a serious game to teach core physical science principles through self-directed exploration of immersive and authentic 3D environments or learning modules. Players will draw on the basic tenets of scientific inquiry as they interact with virtual inclined planes, frictionless surfaces and zero-gravity fields. An associated quiz will challenge their understanding of the main concepts.

By integrating educational material into a framework kids use everyday, the team hopes to create a fun and approachable experience that will help spark a deeper curiosity and love for the sciences and aid in growing a new generation of scientists.

Each learning module will be made up of three sections: a brief primer defining the lesson's objective and key concepts, a 3D environment modeling a core physical science concepts, and a post-quiz to test how much a player picked up from self-directed inquiry into the environment.

The Virtual Learning Worlds project, funded by the National Science Digital Library and based at Columbia University, is exploring the possibilities 3D virtual worlds hold for teaching and learning science concepts. With the help of education, science and software development specialists, the project's first phase intends to develop a working prototype integrating this new technology with more traditional educational approaches

The project kicked off in early 2007 with a major survey of the current work in the field of serious gaming. A catalog of games, documents and related material is available at http://vlw.epic.columbia.edu/research. As research progressed, team members recruited a focus group of education and technology experts to guide and to evaluate progress. As the project moves into the final prototyping phase, the team is working on the Physics Geeks application to create an authentic experience that engages audiences and makes physics fun!

The application will be disseminated primarily through Facebook, the social networking site boasting 60 million active users. Quiz scores and geek level will be displayed on a player's Facebook profile page right next to their friends, creating a fun incentive to achieve and score well on tests.

Individual game modules and tests will be made available through this site to allow access outside the Facebook realm. This standalone site will be advertised to teachers and parents who are not comfortable with having their kids on Facebook. Unfortunately, the "friends" aspect of the game won't be available via this channel.

The Facebook game will be publicly released in October incorporating at least 15 different learning modules. Individual modules will be made available through this site as they are developed.

The modules require you to download the Shockwave player from the Adobe site. You can manually install the modules for your operating system here:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/

Important Note: The modules will reliably run on most Windows machines, but some special steps are required for Mac systems. See full instructions below.

Windows

• Intel Pentium IV 600MHz or higher
• Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later, Microsoft Windows Vista
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later or Firefox 2.0

Macintosh

• Mac OS X 10.4 with Intel processors, Shockwave Player 10, using Rosetta Emulation Mode. (See more information below)
• Power Macintosh

Shockwave has had a checkered history on the Intel-based MacIntosh operating systems. Shockwave versions prior to 11 do not run natively on the operating systems. Shockwave 11 now runs natively on Mac OSX 10.4x machines, but not on the latest Leopard 10.5 systems. And, Shockwave 11 does not support the physics engine Physics Geeks uses.

To reliably run the modules, the best suggestion is to run Physics Geeks under Rosetta Emulation mode, using Shockwave Player version 10.

Step-by-step instructions are available on the Adobe Knowledge Base.

We welcome all comments, suggestions, kudos, bug reports and general conversation. Please send all communication to Susan Dreher, programmer & project coordinator. Her e-mail address is sdreher@columbia.edu

"Physics is crucial to understanding the world around us, the world inside us, and the world beyond us. It is the most basic and fundamental science. Physics challenges our imaginations with concepts like relativity and string theory, and it leads to great discoveries, like computers and lasers, that change our lives."

— The American Physical Society

Cartoonist Ubi has allowed us to license his smart but cool geek character. Ubi is a freelance cartoonist, comic artist, caricaturist and designer working out of Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia. Check out more of Ubi's fantastic work at http://www.ubikartun.com

The 3D modules are written using Macromedia Director MX 2004 with the Havok physics engine plugin. Director allows us to deliver the modules within all major browsers with ease.

The supporting website is written in Java with the standard open-source tools: Tomcat application server, Struts2 application layer with Freemarker templating and a Hibernate data layer. We're obviously using the Facebook API to integrate with their social networking API.

Graphic and artwork is largely taken from open-source and royalty free collections. The major exceptions is our mascot -- the little geeky kid. Cartoonist Ubi Kartun generously allowed us to use his character for educational purposes.

Yes. Once we begin to achieve a stable release for each module, the Macromedia Director movie and website code will be made available on this website for your viewing and hacking pleasure.