Curved Ramps to build in a space?

Hi everyone,
I am trying to write up a lesson for Newton’s Laws of Motion. I would love to have a ball rolling down a ramp for collisions or a car on a rollercoaster type ramp. Is there some easy way I can create the ramp with the building blocks? I really can only get blocky minecraft style easily and would love some sort of a way to transform an object with a curve. Yes, i know that might be a lot to ask. But I thought I would try?

Hi @Jennifer_Cauthers!

Ramps can be easily made with Frustum, Pyramid and (for curved ones:) Torus - building blocks. Below is an example which you can remix to see how the ramps were made!

The Tube item would suit your use-case even more. Unfortunately, the physics calculation for this item is not final yet. I’ll let you know when that item is ready for more accurate physics :slight_smile:

Oh my goodness! Thank you for such a quick reply. I’ll take a look at it today. You’re the best.

Jen

Great! I’ll play a little more. I like the torus for the tube itdea.

Just so you know some of what I was thinking - here’s an image from the web of some rolling ball or matchbox car tracks that teachers use in class sometimes.

I played a little bit with the physics coding and made a ramp for two balls of different masses. It seems to work well but just a straight track without loops or curves.

Can you let me know your thoughts?

Thanks!
Jen

Hi @Jennifer_Cauthers,

that’s a very fun space! I imagine that building ramps yourself is an important aspect of this lesson. One way to make this easier to access for your students is to create pre-assembled ramp parts.

I’ve updated the example shared above with two new Scenes (scene 2,3). Curved ramp parts can be created by attaching many smaller building blocks together, after which you group them into one single item. This allows students to simply copy the template parts and assemble their own track like this:


Video sped up by 5x to show building process. I can’t click that fast :slight_smile:

Building block groups like that are a good workaround to get your track building started. We’re working on improving physics collisions with more building blocks, so that smooth turns and loops will also be possible :slight_smile:

Here’s the link to the updated space:

Here’s a brief tutorial video that gives some tips & tricks for navigating the 3D space of CoSpaces:

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That’s awesome Stefan!
I wasn’t at the point yet where I was thinking about how the students would create the ramp but I love the idea of giving them sections for templates. I’ll have to play see more with the very small sections to get my curves. I did group together my.pieces for my ramp so that I’m familiar with. Love the ideas coming together though! I so appreciate your help.

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Hi @Jennifer_Cauthers,

always happy to help. Please let me know if you need solutions to other problems regarding physics and this lesson :slight_smile:

Thanks again!! Having fun finally taking the time to play with the physics portion of CoSpaces coding.

Love these shortcuts. Going to have to put a little cheat sheet on my screen. This makes it sooo much easier.