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phetsims / projectile-motion

"Projectile Motion" is an educational simulation in HTML5, by PhET Interactive Simulations.
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Explore 'Cluster size' feature for Stats screen #295

Closed matthew-blackman closed 1 year ago

matthew-blackman commented 1 year ago

Looking at ways to add controls for the number of simultaneous projectiles launched in the 'Stats' screen.

matthew-blackman commented 1 year ago

Just added first prototype to bayes!

catherinecarter commented 1 year ago

I love how the number of projectiles can be changed - super neat. I have a couple of comments to open for discussion:

  1. The word, "cluster," is the name of a random sampling method in statistics and might confuse statistics students who are looking for "sample size." I will do some research about statistics language, and I'll also lean on you science people for vocab/language conventions about what "cluster" means from your end and how we can meet the needs of both communities.
  2. The spinner is cool, but changing by 1 might get tedious if wanting to go from the number of projectiles being launched from 2 to 30. Wondering if we can combine something to change the number of projectiles more quickly. I like how you can change the number of projectiles by 1's and wouldn't want to remove this. I wonder if we could include an "increment" button (or pull-down menu, radio button, or whatever works there) as well so the spinner would go by 2's, or 5's, or 10's? image (not exactly what I have in mind, but you get the idea)
  3. Is the number of projectiles launched at a time being captured in the table in CODAP already? If so - great! If not, we need to make sure it's being sent along with the other data.
matthew-blackman commented 1 year ago
  1. We can workshop the name, but I think we should be looking for a neutral term to convey "the number of simultaneously launched projectiles". Sample size doesn't make sense to me - science teachers would not consider launching a cannon to be "sampling" anything, it's just launching a cannon.
matthew-blackman commented 1 year ago
  1. Let's try to avoid adding additional UI for what should be a single control. Perhaps a dropdown menu would work better? Groups of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25?
matthew-blackman commented 1 year ago
  1. This is very tricky because we are capturing the projectiles as they land, not as they are launched. How do you see this working?
catherinecarter commented 1 year ago

For #1 and 2, I like the idea of a slider (and neutral language as well): image

A question for you: is it possible for a slider to snap at 1, 2, 5, and then by 5's after that? Or does it have to be a set increment? I don't know how that code works.

For #3, I'm not 100% sure how it would work, but I'm envisioning something similar to the user-set parameters of the speed/SD and angle/SD that's being sent to the table. Not sure how you made that happen, but it seems plausible as an option. As I said above, though, I don't know how to code works :)

matthew-blackman commented 1 year ago

We found that projectile group size was best to implement as a slider bar with increments of 5. This has been fully explored and tested in the stats screen. We have also found no performance issues for groups of less than ~50 projectiles launched simultaneously.