Instructify

Here’s a way for your students to exercise their creativity as well as their capacity for smashing stuff. Phun lets students learn about physics, friction and resistance in a virtual world, which means your classroom won’t incur any collateral damage.

Phun lets kids create shapes out of thin air that collide with one another. Use chains and springs to connect or, my favorite, send one object smashing into another.

Your kids should be able to learn to use Phun in a couple of minutes just by messing aroud with it. Want to make a boulder? Draw one. It’ll plummet into the abyss, though, unless they create a floor to land on. From these humble beginnings, they’ll soon move on to knocking over rectangular walls with the boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Swedish grad student Emil Ernerfeldt of Umeå University built Phun as a “2D physics playground.” True enough, you can create your own virtual swing set, as well as tetherball and sling shot if you so choose. Just none of the scrapes and bruises. -BILL FERRIS

Phun

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