Some students have difficulty understanding forces, velocities, and accelerations in friction and circular motion problems. Bodily kinesthetic intelligence is the potential of using physical interactions to solve problems or to develop insights. In a recent physics lecture, we made use of our esports suite and physically realistic racing car simulations as an opportunity for students to physically feel and experience the physics of extreme driving conditions during a class period. We found the use of increasingly popular esports facilities to be complementary to in-class instruction.
In the General Physics course, we cover a wide range of topics that are present in racing car dynamics. However, friction between the road and the car’s tires plays the largest role in the physics of racing cars. The simple act of driving the car forward, the tires pulling the road back and using Newton’s third law to propel the car forward, is a wonderful...