SBIR Phase II: Interactive, Combined Circuit & 2D Field Simulator for Educational Mobile Game

SBIR 第二阶段：交互式组合电路

• 批准号: 1927081
• 负责人: Dave Colleran
• 金额: $ 73.95万
• 依托单位: Elloveo, Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-08-15 至 2022-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1927081&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Interactive; Combined

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research SBIR Phase II project will be achieved through creation of a new way of teaching abstract scientific concepts, like electricity and magnetism, and presenting them in an approachable, visual way. The project involves the expansion of the interactive, combined circuit and field simulator built in Phase I. The phase II research will include adapting the existing simulator to cover additional topics covered in middle school and high school physics, for example: semiconductors, solar panels, LEDs, transistors, logic circuits, memory, computers, etc. This innovation is a complex simulator that allows users to "play" with charges, conductors, magnets, generators, motors, and particle accelerators. This allows the user to feel confident with the concepts before they dive into the complex mathematical equations behind the science, which often intimidate students. The goal is to make this very challenging material easier for young people to understand, ultimately inspiring more students to pursue engineering and physics degrees in higher education. The intellectual merit of this SBIR Phase II project lies in developing a new simulator that will be parallelized. Simulating a semiconductor in real-time (60 frames per second) would require handling the electric/magnetic field and diffusion behavior of hundreds to thousands of charges simultaneously and has never been accomplished. Modeling diffusion and increasing the particle count to thousands will require a parallelized, GPU-based simulation engine to handle the physics of the large number of particles required. This is equivalent to incorporating Fick's Law for diffusion and the continuity equations for semiconductor current into the company's existing electricity and magnetism engine. Using this updated engine, students can intuitively learn about the technologies surrounding them (computers, solar power, LEDs, etc.). Additionally, the GPU-based engine will be inherently cross-platform so that it can be used on any device (Apple, Chromebook, PC, etc.). This interactive field and circuit simulator is the first of its kind, and is ideal for allowing students to visualize, experiment with, and intuitively understand complex electricity and magnetism topics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这个小企业创新研究SBIR第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响将通过创造一种新的方式来教授抽象的科学概念，如电和磁，并以一种平易近人的视觉方式呈现它们。该项目涉及扩展在第一阶段建造的交互式、组合电路和现场模拟器。第二阶段的研究将包括调整现有的模拟器，以涵盖中学和高中物理中的其他主题，例如：半导体，太阳能电池板，LED，晶体管，逻辑电路，存储器，计算机等。这使得用户在深入研究科学背后的复杂数学方程之前对概念充满信心，这通常会吓到学生。我们的目标是让年轻人更容易理解这一极具挑战性的材料，最终激励更多的学生在高等教育中攻读工程和物理学位。这个SBIR第二阶段项目的智力价值在于开发一个新的模拟器，将被并行化。实时模拟半导体（每秒60帧）需要同时处理数百到数千个电荷的电场/磁场和扩散行为，并且从未实现过。对扩散进行建模并将粒子数量增加到数千个将需要基于GPU的并行模拟引擎来处理所需大量粒子的物理特性。这相当于将菲克扩散定律和半导体电流连续性方程纳入公司现有的电力和磁性引擎。使用这个更新的引擎，学生可以直观地了解他们周围的技术（计算机，太阳能，LED等）。此外，基于GPU的引擎将是固有的跨平台，因此它可以在任何设备（Apple，Chromebook，PC等）上使用。这款交互式场和电路模拟器是同类产品中的第一款，非常适合让学生可视化、实验和直观地理解复杂的电和磁主题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。