Physics? You learn with motorcycles and without gender differences

Put Hands in doughespecially from very young, is almost always a good idea. Things are learned before, passions are acute and everything is more immediate. This principle is worth more or less always in the school field and definitely fit by brush in the teaching of physics: ok to explain rules and formulas, but then to attract the attention of the boys and encourage them to study you have to understand them how theory applies to real life.

Starting from this intuition, the project was born Physics in motionan interactive physics didactic laboratory made by Ducati Foundation And Lenovo Inside the historic Borgo Panigale motorcycle factory, at the gates of Bologna.

Active since 2007, it has been hosting two high school classes more or less every day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Students For a few hours they are accompanied by a specially trained tutors in the different rooms of the laboratorythat they stimulate them to learn physics explaining How principles work in the fascinating and engaging context of motorcycles and engines.

«Over the years we have noticed that the real strength of this project is not so much to be a physics laboratory, but its location within the company – explain the tutors. – To really passionate about the boys, contact with the real world often lacks, which instead have here ».

Levers, strength, speed, everything is told Starting from the motorcycles of the championswhich without physics could not even make a meter. Sheets of sheet metal and electronic present in the teaching classrooms, whole and pieces, which make students and students remain speechless, By capturing the attention above all of the unsuspected ones, like girls. “Due to the bias that we have introduced over the years, it is thought that children are less interested in engines but from our experience I can say that it is not so at all.”

The laboratory is divided into Three thematic roomseach designed to explore and apply the principles of physics in an interactive and engaging way: the first, inspired by a Ducati workshop, introduces the basic concepts of physics with interactive stations; The second proposes practical experiments to explore Newton’s laws; Finally, the third applies these concepts to the dynamics of the motorcycle and the operation of the engine, in a compelling MotoGP style simulation.

All supported by the ThinkPad workstation and the Lenovo Touch Thinkvision monitors, which offer cutting -edge technological experience and accessible to all boys and girls, taking into account their skills and personal learning methods. This aspect It also helps students with ADHDwho do not always manage to follow a lesson that follows traditional methods.

And after school there are those who come back. The laboratory, in fact, has an appendix called Summer Schoolreserved for boys who by enrolling individually can spend a week in Bologna in Ducati, working in the laboratory, doing High level seminars with the engineers and visiting the factory.

The only requirement: to be of age. The field field makes use of the advice of the free University of Bolzano e aims to inspire the new generations to approach the STEM disciplines. The heart of the program is the team challenge: the boys, divided into groups, develop a research project then evaluated by two juries. A technique made up of professors and engineers, and an expert in communication and scientific dissemination. The final evaluation takes into account not only the quality of work, but also of transversal skills such as critical thinking and the ability to work in a team. Now in its eleventh edition, this year the Summer School It will take place from 14 to 18 July.