Balancing Act

Physics seems such a fascinating subject when it theorizes faster-than-light travel or wormholes, but let’s not forget that studying it begins with basic and more mundane concepts, like the states of mater and, well, balance. While to some these may seem terribly simple concepts, it’s important that pupils quickly grasp them quickly, so they can understand the more advanced ones later.

This exactly why an application like Balancing Act can be extremely useful at teaching children an important lesson about mass.

Most of the applications developed by PhET Interactive Simulations (part of the University of Colorado Boulder) have a fun side to them, but Balancing Act is probably one of their most playful creations. In the first tab, labeled Intro, you get to experiment with the basic rules of balance. You have a seesaw, two fire extinguishers of equal weight and a heavier trash can.

Now put those objects on the seesaw, remove the supports and see how you can achieve balance. Also, you can opt for a few visual aids, like a ruler, arrows indicating the forces of the objects or markers indicating the level of the seesaw.

The second tab is named Balance Lab and here you have the possibility to put all sorts of stuff on the seesaw. Firstly, you have a boy and a man, but also a girl and woman, each with different weights. I couldn’t help chuckle at those naïve yet expressive representations of human beings, but also at the prospect of playing a god that picks up people from their limbo and puts them on a seesaw.

You can also use bricks in this experiment, but also mystery objects that are wrapped like presents; their weight is not displayed, so that’s probably for you to calculate. You’ll also be able to do plenty of that in the Game tab, where you’ll be confronted by simple physics problems, categorized into five levels of difficulty.

It’s easy to conclude that Balancing Act is a charming learning tool that can be helpful to both children and physics teachers.