User request: remove the dog

[arouinfar]

@RVieyra shared this on Slack:

CCK DC: Hey, folks! I understand there has been a long-standing conversation about the icons in the CCK sims, and the dog one came up again on Twitter, and was circulated by one of our PhET Fellows. This is the Tweet, and I can translate the feedback about the sim from the PhET Fellows if desired (it's in Spanish). In a nutshell, the Fellows generally feel that the dog should not be among the options, even though the current is minimized. (See thread for details).

• One PhET Fellow mentioned that he had a student who (in jest) threatened other students if they were to hurt the dog.
• Another mentioned that it could be misinterpreted by people who are against animal cruelty.
• Personally -- as part of my teacher prep, I was educated to never intentionally pass a current across anyone's chest (instead opting to go thumb-thumb in a group, or from pinkie to thumb), no matter how low. If there is an opportunity to re-open the discussion, it might be worth reconsidering the dog, and perhaps replace the existing hand with a "spread hand" that shows current flowing across it. (edited)

The dog has been controversial and in the 1.2 version, we changed its behavior to bark and disconnect if the voltage becomes too high, see #512.

While the decisions made in #512 circumvent the unrealistic resistance and animal cruelty aspects, there are still contexts where the dog may be disruptive or problematic, as @RVieyra shared with us. I suspect that some will want to keep the dog around, but perhaps it is a feature that requires users to opt-in via a query parameter.

There would still be some design issues to contend with, such as:

• If we choose to use a query parameter, do users opt-in or opt-out of the dog?
• Should the dog be part of an Options (or Preferences) dialog? Without a dialog, app users cannot access this customization.
• The carousel doesn't currently support dynamic layout, so hiding the dog may leave a hole. This will likely be addressed when the simulation is republished with PhET-iO support.
• Dynamic layout may not be necessary if we move the dog to the last spot in the carousel. It's currently last everywhere except the Lab screen of CCK: DC. (I'll open a separate issue for the carousel ordering.)

I'm going to add this to the PhET-iO release milestone because we should triage/address this issue as a part of the next release.

[arouinfar]

Discussed with @samreid and @kathy-phet and we are considering removing the dog entirely for these reasons:

• The dog is more whimsical than pedagogical (hand better demonstrates things).
• The act of hooking up a dog to wires and its bark can be perceived as animal cruelty.
• We don't want to create disruptive situations in the classroom.

That said, we should discuss this again with the full team before making a final decision. We should also be sure to discuss the hand, including:

• Does the hand serve a primary learning goal?
• Should the hand be drawn differently?
• Should the hand be hidden behind a query parameter?

[RVieyra]

Just a few more considerations:

• If you keep the hand, I propose a "spread hand," with electrons flowing from pinky to thumb. Right now, wrist to finger is more "odd" than problematic.
• If you keep the hand, please keep in mind the potential need for cultural contextualization (skin tone).
• Does the hand have pedagogical value? Any organic material would, but, you might has well replace it with a carrot (or other fruit/vegetable). Carrots are very conductive, as I learned once when feeding sheep next to an electrified fence. ;-)

[arouinfar]

11/30/22 design meeting @arouinfar @samreid @matthew-blackman

@matthew-blackman said that he has had students who spend a lot of time and energy focused on the dog. It's an attractive distraction and doesn't serve the primary learning goals. Students would drag out every possible battery to create a large current to electrocute the dog (or light the dollar bill on fire). MB had to instruct his students to focus just on batteries, bulbs, resistors, etc. Grab bag items tend to take up a lot of students' attention right away.

Given the number of reasons to eliminate the dog, we decided to move forward with this decision.

[samreid]

The dog has been removed, and I will move the hand comments to a new issue, closing.