Autodesk Digital STEAM Applied Mechanics is a free iPad app that contains five simple games. The games are designed to let students experiment with five connected physics concepts. The concepts in the games are energy and work, force, power, loading, and mechanisms. In each game students control one variable to see how changing that variable affects other aspects of the equation.
The five games that students can play are Energy & Work, Forces, Power, Loading, and Mechanisms. In Energy & Work students control how much hot air is pumped into a hot air balloon as it is pushed along by the wind. Students have to manage the rate at which fuel is burned so that the balloon doesn’t run out of hot air before the end of the game. The Forces game has players using a catapult to lob meatballs (at least that’s what they look like to me). In the Loading game students use a crane to correctly distribute weight to waiting trucks. In Power players control the thrusters of a spaceship to navigate obstacles and safely land at a destination. And in the Mechanism game students maneuver a helicopter by controlling the ration of the gears powering the rotor.
Autodesk Digital STEAM could be a good app for introducing elementary school students to some basic physics concepts.
