Coding for Kids
Table of Contents
Using Physics with Tynker: Part 2
Tynker’s Physics Engine allows kids to easily make all kinds of fun games, including this Angry Birds™-inspired game!
Hold down your mouse to charge the cannon. When you let go, the bird will fly across the screen. The monster has three lives, so you have to hit him three times to defeat him.
Tynker’s Physics Engine is a super easy-to-use physics simulator. Kids create objects, set some basic physics properties like gravity, friction, and bounciness, and watch as the objects they’ve created move and interact based on their physics settings.
Using Tynker’s Physics Engine, kids can make their own versions of this fun game. It’s actually pretty easy! We’ve made a do-it-yourself project with detailed step-by-step instructions so kids can make this game. It uses our new DIY format with blocks that you can drag directly from the instructions, which makes coding much easier.
Make Your Own Physics Cannon Game
Here’s How It Works:
Start Physics
At the beginning of every Tynker program that uses physics, students use this block to initiate the physics simulation.
Set Up Gravity
When the bird is launched, it will be affected by gravity pulling it downwards. The first number in this block sets the horizontal gravity and the second number sets the vertical gravity.
Make Some Objects Movable
Kids have to figure out which objects they want to be movable, and which ones they want to be static. For an Angry Birds program, the charge bar and cannon should be static, while the monster and bird should be non-static.
Make Some Objects Immune to Physics
If physics is on, all objects will be affected by gravity. But the charge bar and the cannon need to stay where they are, so they should be inactive.
Launch the Bird
When the player has charged the cannon, this block launches the bird out of the cannon. But kids can also experiment with other ways to launch the bird, like applying an impulse to the bird. Just as with all programming, there’s no one right way to solve a problem!
If your kids enjoy this DIY, check out our home courses. In Cannon Crasher, Gravity Sling, and Ninja Runner, kids make games like this and hundreds more.
