Augmented reality and rigid body simulation for edutainment: the interesting mechanism - an AR puzzle to teach Newton physics

Physics simulation is becoming more common in computing. We have developed a comprehensive toolkit to connect the physical and virtual world within Augmented Reality (AR) using rigid body simulation. Unlike existing techniques of embedding physics simulations into 3D environments, the use of rigid body simulations within AR requires a different approach. To demonstrate our approach we developed an edutainment game based on the concept of chain reactions and physical contraptions. In this paper we elaborate on the constraints introduced by mixing AR and rigid body simulation, and how it subsequently effects the visual richness and perceptual appearance of an AR simulation. We describe our implementation approach and provide an analysis of additional scenarios which would be enriched by physical simulation.