Abstract:

The constant development of information technology expands access to new content in the sciences and engineering. As the complexity of the issues we want to learn grows, so does usually the cost of learning by doing. It seems that the cost of teaching and learning can be expressed by: the financial outlays required to construct the research stand, the size of the area in which the stand will be located, the time needed to prepare, conduct and reconstruct the conditins for the experiment, and the time taken to acquire and understand the basic concepts of new issues. In the paper, the authors present the use of 3D visualisation and simulation technology to reduce the mentioned costs and consequently increase the availability of complex science and engineering content.

The authors also take into account the fact that virtual simulation environments provide the ability to independently define the purpose of the experiment. As a result, each participant can not only obtain knowledge from top-down scenarios, but can also gain insights into the behaviour of objects in a simulation environment. The experimental problem described in this article is concerned with the study of the behaviour of a collection of moving virtual robots. This problem is directly related to the so-called collective programming of objects that communicate with each other in order to solve problems.

This article describes the design of a simulation environment based on the Unity graphics engine. The project assumes a modification of the standard graphic engine interface and making it more accessible to people unfamiliar with information technology. In addition, the article presents examples of prepared experiment scenarios and selected results of student experiments and the results they achieved.

Keywords:

Computer simulations, inquiry-learning, meaning-making, swarm programming, Unity.