This is a Unity powered game intended to teach high schoolers and middle schoolers some of the basics of kinematics. It is part of a STEM workshop called "Seeds in Stem" which runs for students in the Santa Maria Unified School District every winter. This project is for the Winter 2021 workshop.

This was part of a project-based learning class. I was assigned to a team, and our goal was to design and schedule one third of the workshop. While brainstorming ideas for the workshop, I proposed the idea of creating a video game to teach basic kinematics through the narrative of a space ranger altering the net force acting on them by using a jetpack.

The main challenge was learning C# and Unity. I was also on an Agile project management schedule, so I had two weeks to display tangible results.

My Approach

I used a six step process:

1. Identify what I need to do next for the project.
2. Search on forums on how to do this.
3. Attempt to do it and fail.
4. Search forums again to debug.
5. Debug.
6. Repeat.

One of the first hurdles I had to overcome was implementing a first person mechanism. By using my six step process, I managed to write a function that lets the player look around:

void Update()
    {
        float mouseX = Input.GetAxis("Mouse X") * mouseSensitivity * Time.deltaTime;
        float mouseY = Input.GetAxis("Mouse Y") * mouseSensitivity * Time.deltaTime;

        xRotation -= mouseY;
        xRotation = Mathf.Clamp(xRotation, -90f, 90f);

        transform.localRotation = Quaternion.Euler(xRotation, 0f, 0f);
        playerBody.Rotate(Vector3.up * mouseX);
    }

This method also allowed me to incorporate raycasts so that the player could click objects in the distance to find how to far away they are:

void Update()
    {
        float mouseX = Input.GetAxis("Mouse X") * mouseSensitivity * Time.deltaTime;
        float mouseY = Input.GetAxis("Mouse Y") * mouseSensitivity * Time.deltaTime;

        xRotation -= mouseY;
        xRotation = Mathf.Clamp(xRotation, -90f, 90f);

        transform.localRotation = Quaternion.Euler(xRotation, 0f, 0f);
        playerBody.Rotate(Vector3.up * mouseX);

        if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0)){

            RaycastHit hit;
            Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);

            if (Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit, 100.0f)){
                if (hit.transform != null){
                    SetHeightReference(hit.transform);
                }
            }
        }
    }

Result

Through this methodology, I learned a very specialized skillset in Unity and C# that can be applied to first person games. This skillset includes the use of GameObject, raycasting, usage of quaternions, transforms, and Vector3 objects. I also got to apply my knowledge in kinematics and see how it would fit in the frame of game design. For example, in my ChangeGravity() function, I managed to implement this equation:

as shown below:

public void ChangeGravity(){
        jetString = inputField.GetComponent<Text>().text;
        jetForce = float.Parse(jetString, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.NumberFormat);
        netForce = jetForce;
        jumpHeight = (velocity.y * velocity.y) / (-2f * -9.81f);
    }