Overview
The Virtual Physics Laboratory is an interactive simulation environment built on the Roblox platform, designed to give students hands-on experiment experience where physical laboratories are unavailable — whether because of distance learning (as during the COVID-19 pandemic), under-resourced schools, or simply to re-engage students who have lost interest in physics. By building on Roblox, a platform young students already use, the laboratory is free, requires no specialized software, and is accessible from virtually any smart device.
The topics were chosen scientifically: the team surveyed roughly 100 11th and 12th grade students on how well they understood each 9th and 10th grade physics topic, and built dedicated laboratory rooms for the six topics with the lowest comprehension scores. The project became a Regional Finalist in the TÜBİTAK 2204-A High School Students Research Projects Competition.
The Six Laboratories
- Electroscope — students bring charged rods near or into contact with eight differently charged electroscopes and watch the leaves and final charges respond through animations
- Types of Electrification — friction (ebonite/wool, glass/silk), contact, and induction charging, with resulting charges displayed
- Charge Distribution in Conductors and Insulators — surface charge behaviour and a working Faraday cage demonstration
- Effect of Pressure on Phase Change — boiling points at different altitudes and melting under pressure, including water's anomalous behaviour
- Newton's Second Law — moving objects through frictional and frictionless environments to observe force, mass, and acceleration relationships
- Fluid Pressure — a model of flow through pipes of varying cross-section, demonstrating movement from high to low pressure
Testing & Results
To measure real learning impact, the laboratory was trialled with ten 11th grade students (five from a science high school, five from an Anadolu high school; five girls and five boys) over two class periods, with parental consent and district education authority permission. Students answered one question per laboratory topic before and after the experience. Correct-answer rates rose across every topic — reaching 100% on three of the six questions — and the gap between the two school types disappeared after the virtual lab session.
A telling detail emerged from the data: the smallest improvement came in the one laboratory where students passively observed a model rather than interacting with it — supporting the conclusion that active student participation is what makes virtual laboratories effective. The team's hypothesis — that virtual labs help students learn poorly understood topics and reinforce learned ones — was supported, and the findings point to virtual laboratories as a tool for equal opportunity in education.
Competition Context
TÜBİTAK 2204-A is the national high school students research projects competition organized by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, entered in the Physics main field with Digital Game Design as the thematic area. The Virtual Physics Laboratory achieved Regional Finalist status, and the laboratory remains open to visitors on Roblox.