EXPERIMENTS IN RIGID BODY MECHANICS USING A REMOTE LABORATORY

Remote laboratories are one of the most advanced ways to implement new computer technology in education. Real experiments are mounted in the laboratory of a certain university, and the access can be done via the Internet. The link is remotely done through the Web, in some cases it is even possible to observe the development of the experiment through a TV camera also connected to the Internet. This allows students to be placed in the actual laboratory. Undoubtedly, these systems represent a huge advantage in science teaching since many laboratories do not have enough equipment to make certain experiments. Once the technological problem of developing the experiment and designing the remote access to it is over, the main questions that arise are didactic in nature: How to approach the implementation of these devices in the teaching environment? How to do instructional design? How to evaluate the results in learning physics? In this paper, we present a general description of the architecture of the devices as well as some didactic strategies for their use in experiments in rigid body mechanics. We also show the results of the implementation of one of the developed strategies with a group of engineering students. They show a meaningful learning of physics concepts and laws related with dynamics and energy of a rigid body rolling down on an inclined plane.