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Baseball may be America's favorite pastime, but in your classroom, Electric Field Hockey is the game to play. By combining serious learning with serious fun, this simulation instills an intuitive understanding of the Coulomb force, the superposition of forces, and frictionless motion. Electric Field Hockey is played with a charged ball on a frictionless surface, and the object of the game, as in a real field hockey game, is to score a goal by propelling the ball into a net. However, in this case, the charged ball moves under the influence of other charged particles that are "glued" down on the playing surface. There are six levels of play, increasing in difficulty and scope. When players gain enough understanding to score a goal at one level, they advance automatically to the next. At level six, their mastery of electrostatics is awarded with the Coulomb Prize! The simulation's underlying concept of directing a moving charge with fixed charges is unique. Players design a configuration of stationary charged particles that will steer the charged ball around obstacles and into the net. Force vectors showing the net force on the ball at each step can be displayed as the ball moves. This feature makes the "game" a powerful tool for demonstrating the superposition of forces. Bring Electric Field Hockey into your class, and your students will get excited. They will get involved. They will learn. Try it yourself - but remember, once you start, you may not be able to stop! 32 pp. System Requirements:
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