STUDENT’S VIRTUAL PROJECTS IN THE PHYSICS LABORATORY PRACTICUM OF THE SPECIALIZED LICEUM

The article discusses the organization of students’ project activities in the development of the educational software for the common educational space “Lyceum - University”. Second-year students of Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU) take part in creating virtual projects. The students create virtual labs for modeling physical processes. Virtual experiments are widely used in modern educational physical laboratories. The combination of real and virtual experiments is a good motivator for students which provides new opportunities for teaching physics. The students’ programs can find its application in the laboratory practicum of NSTU and specialized lyceums as an additional didactic tool. Usually a team of three or four students is working on a virtual project. The teacher plays the role of an advisor. The students have to solve a number of problems in the process of creation of the project: mathematical formalization of the physical process model, choice of a method for solving the model equations, design of basic algorithm, development of the graphic interface, software implementation, program testing, analysis of the results, analysis of their own activity, presentation of the project. As an example we consider the virtual lab “Light diffraction at N slits” designed by three second-year students of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science of NSTU. The program was created with object-oriented language C++ and Open Graphics Library (Open GL). In the main programming window there is the 3D image of the optical system that includes the source of monochromatic radiation, the obstacle with parallel slits (the grating) and the screen for observation of a diffraction pattern. The light beam coming from the source and the light flux redistribution are visualized in colors of the visible range in accordance with the chosen wavelength. The user interface makes it possible to interactively control the process by changing some characteristic parameters: the wavelength, the number of slits, the slit width, the distance between the slits and the distance from the obstacles to the screen. All the changes are visualized by changing color, redistribution of the diffraction pattern and the obstacle spatial movement. This virtual lab is used in laboratory practicum together with the real optical system for studying the phenomenon of light diffraction. Similar student software is used in the e-learning environment of NSTU and Engineering Lyceum of NSTU. Sometimes the students who are working to create virtual labs are themselves the graduates of Engineering Lyceum.

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