Chain Experiment competition inspires learning of physics

Abstract

The Chain Experiment is an annual competition which originated in Slovenia in 2005 and later expanded to Poland in 2013. For the purpose of the event, each participating team designs and builds a contraption that transports a small steel ball from one end to the other. At the same time the constructed machine needs to use a number of interesting phenomena and physics laws. In the competition’s finale, all contraptions are connected to each other to form a long chain transporting steel balls. In brief, they are all evaluated for qualities such as: creativity and advance in theoretical background, as well as the reliability of the constructed machine to work without human help. In this article, we present the contraptions developed by students taking part in the competition in order to demonstrate the advance in theoretical basis together with creativity in design and outstanding engineering skills of its participants. Furthermore, we situate the Chain Experiment in the context of other group competitions, at the same time demonstrating that—besides activating numerous group work skills—it also improves the ability to think critically and present one’s knowledge to a broader audience. We discussed it in the context of problem based learning, gamification and collaborative testing.

Ten years of the project Chain Experiment

“…In 2013, a Polish group of organizers launched the preparation of an analogous competition in Poland. We helped them to promote the idea with some of our demo chain contraptions [12]. They adopted our basic rules and in 2014 the first national competition in Poland was carried out on the same day and at the same time as in Slovenia.…”

“…There is a particular reason for having most constructors coming from the last years of primary school (pupils age [12][13][14][15]. In Slovenia the university educational programs for formation of primary school teachers for a particular subject is as a rule two-subject oriented.…”

“…The project has been presented at several international conferences and meetings, such as GIREP (2005), GIREP-EPEC (2007), ShowPhysics (2006,2009,2011), ShowScience (2015) and at local conferences and physics shows [7][8][9][10][11]. In 2014 our Polish colleagues have started a chain experiment competition taking the Slovenian project as a model [12].…”

Physics competition to inspire learning and improve soft skills: a case of the Chain Experiment

“…It is not rare that students with good conceptual knowledge of physics obtain bad results in tests if they have low mathematical skills (Meltzer 2002). To encourage such students, interesting options are engineering competitions, such as the Formula SAE race and Chain Experiment competitions, which emphasize engineering experience related to designing, constructing and testing real hardware or contraptions (Dziob et al 2017;Schuster et al 2006). Both competitions naturally incorporate design education, with students working towards a unique solution to a pre-defined problem (Haupt 2017) and creating a technological result.…”

“…However, although Chain Experiment competitions have been described previously (Dziob et al 2017;Susman et al 2017), research is yet to be presented concerning how these competitions influence participants' achievements or soft-skills development. At the same time, some aspects (including knowledge and soft skills, considered herein) have been described in the context of activities that are to some extent similar to the Chain Experiment competition (e.g.…”