2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Introduction to Interactive Simulations for Dynamics Education (InSiDE)
We have developed a set of Interactive Simulations for Dynamics Education (InSiDE) aimed at teaching Vector Dynamics at the undergraduate level across Engineering Colleges. Dynamics is a fundamental course across many engineering disciplines, such as Mechanical, Aerospace, and
Civil Engineering. However, its highly mathematical nature often challenges students. The InSiDE follows a standard curriculum for Engineering Dynamics, including the kinetics and kinematics of particles, a system of particles, and rigid bodies. It follows almost all Dynamics textbooks. We developed two complete sets of interactive simulations for each topic: 1) Teaching Simulations: These simulations are designed for instructors to use for teaching either during lecture time or in a flipped format. 2) Practice Simulations: These simulations are designed for students to use primarily as practice (homework or pre-lecture activities) or incorporated into assessments by instructors.
Within the InSiDE teaching simulations, students can change multiple parameters of a system and observe its behavior. These simulations cultivate an intuitive understanding of a system's motion and dynamic behavior. In our experience, this intuitive understanding of motion is critical to students’ ability to formulate a problem mathematically. The students will be able to interact with each system, design, calculate, predict, and observe the motion. The students will benefit from instructor guidance in working with these simulations. Therefore, we suggest using these simulations for teaching in a flipped format with instructions or in the classroom during lecture time.
The InSiDE practice simulations instill a systematic approach to problem-solving in Dynamics, guiding students step by step through a problem solution. These simulations provide students with prompts on how to start and then proceed to solve a problem, check their answers at each step, and provide feedback when their answers are wrong.
The InSiDE simulations are created in Unity, a gaming engine that has also been used for other purposes. InSiDE is available to the public through our website: https://cpp-inside.github.io/.
To investigate students’ use, perceptions, and learning gains while using our interactive simulations, we implemented InSiDE and gathered data during Spring 2024 and Fall 2024 in our Vector Dynamics course. While both classes were exposed to the simulations in a flipped classroom teaching approach, the treatment class was encouraged to use the simulations outside of class time to practice, while the control class was not. We used student surveys and analyzed chapter tests to study the impact of InSiDE on students’ learning.
The ASEE presentation will include an introduction to InSiDE and suggestions for incorporating it into different teaching styles, including flipped format and lecture with active learning techniques. We will also report on our findings of the impact of InSiDE on students’ learning in our Vector Dynamic course. This analysis comes from three data sets: 1) Students’ performance in Spring and Fall 2024 courses, comparing the treatment and control groups, 2) Students’ end of the semester survey responses regarding the InSIDE, and 3) A survey from a collection of Dynamics instructors in the California State University system who were introduced to InSiDE during a workshop in Summer of 2024. Preliminary results indicate the InSiDE enhance students’ ability to solve dynamics problems.