For most of our students, video games are a normal part of their lives. We should take advantage of this medium to teach physics in a manner that is engrossing for our students. In particular, modern video games incorporate accurate physics in their game engines, and they allow us to visualize the physics through flashy and captivating graphics. I recently used the game “Scorched 3D” to help my students understand projectile motion.

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Information about “Scorched 3D” and software downloads are available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/scorched3d and http://www.scorched3d.co.uk.
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Download the physicslab mod from E-PHTEAH-46-017801.
http://ftp.aip.org/cgi-bin/epaps?ID=E-PHTEAH-46-017801. For information on EPAPS, see http://www.aip.org/pubservs/epaps.html, document number E-PHTEAH-46-017801
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