Combining physical REALity with SIMulations in pedagogical laboratory experiments

Abstract

The RealSimPLE project provides teachers with a modular collection of online musical acoustics laboratory experiments, including experiments on elementary wave motion, vibrating strings, pipes, sensors, digital waveguides, psychoacoustics, PID control, sound cards, and more. Hands-on laboratory sessions are complemented by pedagogical computer-based simulations or animations of the same systems. This dichotomous approach illustrates both the behavior of the real system together with corresponding idealized theoretical simulation. Moreover, the simulations can illustrate hard-to-measure details of the real system, or highlight details which easily escape the eye or ear. In this way, the traditional lab bench is enhanced rather than replaced. Detailed instructions help teachers and/or students easily construct the minimal amount of low-cost laboratory equipment needed. The RealSimPLE website (http://ccrma.stanford.edu/realsimple) also includes rollover ‘‘pop-up’’ definitions for many technical terms. These definitions (within HTML pop-up overlays) include links to more-detailed definitions and examples, allowing website visitors to easily dig deeper down through the tree of prerequisite terms, thereby filling in any knowledge-gaps they may have. A motivated student anywhere in the world with a basic math and physics background can obtain advanced graduate-level knowledge from the website in a self-paced, demand-driven manner. [This work was supported by the Wallenberg Global Learning Network.]