Related papers: Educational Challenges of Rubik's Cube
We aim to design robotic educational support systems that can promote socially and intellectually meaningful learning experiences for students while they complete school work outside of class. To pursue this goal, we conducted participatory…
A cube is an 8-rep-tile: it is the union of eight smaller copies of itself. Is there a set with a hole which has this property? The computer found an interesting and complicated solution, which then could be simplified. We discuss some…
Puzzle-based training is a common type of hands-on activity accompanying formal and informal cybersecurity education, much like programming or other IT skills. However, there is a lack of tools to help the educators with the post-training…
Rigid origami is a branch of origami with great potential in engineering applications to deal with rigid-panel folding. One of the challenges is to compactly fold the polyhedra made from rigid facets with a single degree of freedom. In this…
Here we present our arguments for a more in-depth study of the Boolean cube, which is one of the most important discrete structures. The article contains a case study that analyses how the Boolean cube has been included and explained in…
While learning by teaching is a popular pedagogical technique, it is a learning phenomenon that is difficult to study due to variability in the tutor-tutee pairings and learning environments. In this paper, we introduce the Curiosity…
Quaternions provide a unified algebraic and geometric framework for representing three-dimensional rotations without the singularities that afflict Euler-angle parametrisations. This article develops a pedagogical and conceptual analysis of…
Training students in basic concepts of physics, such as the ones related to mass, volume, or density, is much more complicated than just stating the underlying definitions and laws. One of the reasons for this is that most students have…
While logic puzzles have engaged individuals through problem-solving and critical thinking, the creation of new puzzle rules has largely relied on ad-hoc processes. Pencil puzzles, such as Slitherlink and Sudoku, represent a prominent…
When using security questions most users still trade-off security for the convenience of memorability. This happens because most users find strong answers to security questions difficult to remember. Previous research in security education…
Physicists have used billiards to understand and explore both classical and quantum chaos. Recently, in 2001, a group at the University of Texas introduced an experimental set up for modeling the wedge billiard geometry called optical…
This article describes an exemplary robot exercise which was conducted in a class for mechatronics students. The goal of this exercise was to engage students in scientific thinking and reasoning, activities which do not always play an…
In 2022, Olivier Longuet, a French mathematics teacher, created a game called the \textit{calissons puzzle}. Given a triangular grid in a hexagon and some given edges of the grid, the problem is to find a calisson tiling such that no input…
E. Gutkin found a remarkable class of convex billiard tables in the plane which have a constant angle invariant curve. In this paper we prove that in dimension 3 only round sphere has such a property. For dimension greater than 3 it must be…
Equations are about more than computing physical quantities or constructing formal models; they are also about understanding. The conceptual systems physicists use to think about nature are made from many different resources, formal and…
In 1926, Jarn\'ik introduced the problem of drawing a convex $n$-gon with vertices having integer coordinates. He constructed such a drawing in the grid $[1,c\cdot n^{3/2}]^2$ for some constant $c>0$, and showed that this grid size is…
Jigsaw puzzle solving requires the rearrangement of unordered pieces into their original pose in order to reconstruct a coherent whole, often an image, and is known to be an intractable problem. While the possible impact of automatic puzzle…
The purpose of this work is to explore a teaching methodology aimed at communicating topics and subjects not typically studied and analyzed in the (Italian) secondary school. We focused specifically on the use of videogames as a…
Our paper is research in progress that is research investigating the use of games technology to enhance the learning of a physical skill. The Microsoft Kinect is a system designed for gaming with the capability to track the movement of…
We study linear quadratic dynamic games where players are uncertain about each other's control policies or goals and consequently seek to be strategically robust. Building on recent work on strategically robust and risk-averse game theory,…