ASPECT: sinking and floating haptics for elementary school students

Abstract

Traditional classroom methods of teaching concepts relating to buoyancy (sinking and floating) to elementary students are often ineffective. Incorporating haptic force-feedback controllers may help to improve traditional teaching methods. ASPECT: Sinking and Floating, targets student misconceptions via an interactive playable simulation. In addition to targeting misconceptions, ASPECT: Sinking and Floating also uses a Novint Falcon (http://www.novint.com/index.php/novintfalcon) haptic force-feedback controller to enable direct feeling of forces. This paper presents our design process and initial findings.