- Project category: Math Square behavior
- Team members: Lise Ho lise.ho6@gmail.com, Brian Sapozhnikov brian.sapozhnikov@gmail.com, Shaan Sheikh shaansweb@gmail.com, Mary Taft mary.taft97@gmail.com
This is an interactive demo of center of mass for the MoMath Math Square exhibit. This was created at the MoMath Expressions hackathon on August 5th and 6th, 2017.
Git clone the repo, run npm install, run npm run-script dev, and type "center-of-mass" in behavior. Our behavior file is located in behs/center-of-mass.js. For more details, see the MoMath Math Square SDK.
The purpose of the project is to create an interactive demonstration that intuitively conveys the concept of a center of mass of a polygon. The center of mass has many applications in both geometry and physics. In our demo, we create a polygon with the positions of all visitors on the Math Square as verticies. The center of mass of the polygon is shown on the screen, along with lines connecting it to each user on the Square, intuitively conveying that visitors' positions influence the position of the center of mass. A ring is shown on the Square, and visitors must collaborate to move the center of mass into the ring. Once this goal is achieved, we rotate the polygon around the ring to visually demonstrate how the center of mass is the point around which a freely rotating object with a non-zero angular velocity will rotate. A new ring is then set as the target.
We expect our exhibit will be especially educational for elementary and middle school age children, though all ages will find it to be a fun learning experience. It encourages collaboration and communication among visitors. However, not all visitors on the square need to participate in achieving the goal for the goal to be reached, as others can compensate for their movements. This makes it ideal for when there are multiple people of a variety of ages on the board. This may even be more educational for older students because they must learn how the center of mass behaves when you have limited control of the polygon's verticies.
To make it clearer that the users need to get the center of mass to the target ring, the color of the polygon is determined by the distance between the center of mass and ring. The closer visitors manage to bring the center of mass to the target ring, the greener the polygon becomes. The further it gets, the bluer it becomes.
