Background: Simulations are a useful resource for learning A-Level Physics. Part of my current research involves re-creating some original physics experiments from the 1920's - 30's where the apparatus no longer exists. This project is suitable for anyone who is considering entering the teaching profession, as a teacher of computing. You will work with teachers and/or A-Level physics students supported by a tutor from the Institute of Educaton. You will use the Unreal engine and write code in C++ using our Simulation Framework code base.

Aims: (i) To create a simulation of one or more physics experiments, (ii) To create associated learning resources, (iii) To evaluate these resources with students and/or teachers.

Objectives: This project could run as 'Action Research' where you iteratively design, build and test (evaluate with students and or teachers) your product.

Lit. Review: There is a huge amount of journal articles available. Many focus on physics simulation, others focus on the use of game engine technology in education.

Secondary Data: Other simulation resources.

Primary Data: Evaluation of your simulation and associated resources. This could be via a focus group, or via questionnaires.

Technology: Unreal-4 (lab machines) or Unreal-5 using our MAS22 softwareEv framework.

Ethical Approval: Requires enhanced Ethical Approval since this project involves collecting data from people.

Background: Energy production is clearly in the public eye at the moment. While there are short-term issues, clearly a long-term vision needs to be developed to reduce dependency on oil and gas. This project will look at one or more possible future energy sources, from a technical perspective.

Wind and hydro power are now well-established as alternative energy sources. Solar-PV has had a limited success in contributing to a serious energy budget. Recent research is focussing on wave and tidal energy sources, this makes sense since the oceans are so vast and powerful. This project will specifically focus on wave and / or tidal energy.

Aims: (i) To research and understand models of wave/tidal energy production. (ii) To develop a simulator of the chosen model, to allow exploration of the model’s features. (iii) To subject the chosen model to a quantitative (scientific) analysis.

Objectives: I would expect a discussion of current alternative energy sources and to relate wave/tidal to these. The rest are for you to decide but these must be linked to your simulator, and primary data collection.

Secondary Data: Data from research papers on wave/tidal energy installations and their results. The US ‘National Renewable Research Laboratory’ (NREL) has a number of useful projects which you should know about.

Primary Data: Measurements from your model, how much energy it develops from specific wave/tidal data (from your Lit. Review).

Ethical Approval: Straightforward. Does not involve people.

Background: Game and Simulation levels can get very large, it soon becomes laborious for the level designer to populate the level with assets, especially buildings in the Editor by hand. The process can be made hugely more efficient by creating buildings and towns procedurally, using code. This of course requires designing building elements (walls, floors) which seamlessly join together. Also, there must be a sufficient range of elements to create a number of different buildings, e.g., a block of apartments with different layouts and number of rooms.

Aims: (i) To develop a C++ framework to deploy with Unreal 4 or 5 to allow architects to rapidly design and create a building, an estate or even a city. (ii) To get an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of your framework using human participants.

Objectives: for you to decide but I would expect you to conduct a study of design principles for buildings, perhaps looking at floor-plans of buildings available from estate agents. Another ‘deliverable’ is full documentation allowing future level developers and researchers apply your framework (otherwise, what’s the point?)

Lit. Review: There are a number of journal articles available. Other valid source of information are Wikis. Blogs, GDCs and current (Unreal 4, Unreal 5) information about procedural buildings.

Secondary Data: Frameworks, algorithms and code developed by others.

Primary Data: Evaluation of your framework by yourself, using objective measures such as lines of code, code complexity, time saved by using a procedural approach

Research Questions: for you to decide but must be linked to your primary data collection.

Technology: Unreal-4 / 5

Ethical Approval: Straightforward since no human participants are involved.

Background: When you play a video game, how do you decide where to go next? Which door to go through, or which staircase to go up. Which path to take out in the open? Does this depend on the type of the game, does it depend on your gaming experience or of your native culture? For example, previous research I have conducted shows that players when they come to a T-Junction prefer to turn left if they are UK players, but US players tend to turn right. So can we find some fundamental factors which influence how players make real-time in-game full-on choices?

Aims: (i) To create one or more levels using Unreal 4 which contain specific features to elicit a player response. (ii) To evaluate player response to the features you have created.

Objectives: for you to decide

Lit. Review: (i) In the academic year 2021-22 a number of students chose this topic as their Computing Project. It is imperative that you review their work and results. (ii) Review some technical reports from Dr.C (iii) You can get an enormous amount of information from the GDCs, and this has at least equivalent status to ‘journal articles’ for this project.

Secondary Data: This comes from published work which addresses this topic. Again, I refer you to the 2021-22 computing projects.

Primary Data: You must decide how to collect player movement. This can be done in a number of ways, e.g. (i) you could create Blueprints to log player choices, (ii) you could use the built-in feature of Unreal-4 to create movies of player actions.

Research Questions: for you to decide but must be linked to your primary data collection.

Technology: Unreal-4

Ethical Approval: You will need to complete an enhanced Ethical Approval submission, since this research involves people. A template will be provided.