Category: StaticsGame

DIGM 540 – Engineering Statics Game Concept 00 – Ring with Strings

digm520admin / / DIGM540, engineering, Game Work, GameDesign, StaticsGame, Unity
May 24th, 2018

Engineering Statics Game Concept – 00

Vimeo – Concept for Engineering Statics Game

This was a quick proof of concept to show the idea from the last post at work. This concept takes inspiration from the hands on engineering kit that used masses on strings tugging on a central ring object to teach topics such as center of mass and vector math.

The forces from the nodes on the ring are calculated to emulate that of a mass attached to a string. Each node has a mass value associated with it (which would be the mass hanging off of it in the real world kit), and this influences how much force that node is applying to the main circular object. Moving the nodes or changing their mass value will influence the position of the ring, as it effectively represents the center of mass of the entire system through the forces applied by the nodes.

Using a simple example, I was quickly able to run a test to double check if the values provided by this toy were matching that of the true calculations and they did for the single test I’ve run so far. The center of mass equations of a system of particles was used, which can be found here on Wikipedia: Center of Mass – Wiki

DIGM 540 – Engineering Statics Game Project – Forces in Unity

digm520admin / / DIGM540, engineering, Forces, GameDesign, Physics Engine, Scripting, StaticsGame, Unity
May 23rd, 2018

Forces in Unity

AddForce – Unity Official Tutorials

Youtube – AddForce – Unity Official Tutorials

The bare basics of scripting forces in Unity with rigidBody’s. The AddForce can take two inputs: a vector for direction and magnitude, and what type of force it is.

ForceModes
  • Acceleration – Continuous change; not affected by mass
  • Force – (Default) Continuous change; affected by mass
  • Impulse – Instant change; affected by mass
  • VelocityChange – Instant change; not affected by mass

AddTorque – Unity Official Tutorials

Youtube – AddTorque – Unity Official Tutorials

The bare basics of scripting torques in Unity with rigidBody’s. The AddTorque can take two inputs: a vector axis to apply torque around, and what type of torque it is. This is very similar to AddForce. Important to remember, Unity uses “LEFT HAND RULE” for rotation.

ForceModes
  • Acceleration – Continuous change; not affected by mass
  • Force – (Default) Continuous change; affected by mass
  • Impulse – Instant change; affected by mass
  • VelocityChange – Instant change; not affected by mass

Game Ideation

Engineering Teaching & Research Equipment – Armfield

EF-1.1 – Statics – Forces experiment kitYoutube – EF series video Statics Forces 1 1 3

The links are similar videos, the first is just directly to the site of those that made the kit, and the second is a Youtube link. This kit provides hand on experience for understanding a lot of topics based around static equilibrium. Topics such as 2D shape center of masses, force vectors, and much more can be covered with this tool.

Game Idea – Engineering Statics Game

Following the general idea of the kit shown above, the game environment is populated with nodes that apply controllable forces to a central ring object. These forces can be altered to change the position of the ring. The environment will spawn collectibles that the player must direct the ring towards in order to collect them. To move the ring, they will need to intelligently alter the forces applied by the nodes.

Quick sketch of concept