Teacher Demonstration
Use the live model as a shared screen demonstration before students try their own predictions and observations.
Physics / Kinematics
Physics Frogger
Use Physics Frogger as a relative-motion crossing game: time fixed frog jumps across moving road hazards and water supports, using position, velocity, collision, and safe-landing evidence.
1. Watch or Launch
Launch the Interactive
Open the simulation, adjust the controls, and compare what changes on screen before answering the concept-check questions.
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2. Big Ideas
Key idea Physics Frogger is a relative-motion and collision-avoidance game. The frog makes fixed-size jumps across lanes, while cars, trucks, bikes, logs, boats, fish, and turtles move horizontally with different velocities.
What Students Can Learn
- Use position and velocity to judge whether the next road square will be safe.
- Recognise that road vehicles are collision hazards, while water objects are moving supports.
- Account for relative motion when the frog rides a log, boat, turtle, or fish and is carried sideways.
- Balance time, distance travelled, and the target lily pad when choosing a route.
Guiding Question
When is it safe to jump, wait, or move sideways as the moving hazards and supports pass the frog?
3. Try the Investigation
Read the Lane
Identify whether the frog is approaching the road, water, sand, or lily-pad zone.
Predict Motion
Use the direction and speed of nearby vehicles or floating objects to predict where they will be after the next jump.
Choose a Move
Jump up, left, right, down, or wait so the frog avoids road collisions and lands on moving water support.
Evaluate the Route
Use time, distance, and the final lily-pad choice to discuss whether the path was efficient or only safe.
4. Teacher Notes
Lesson Use
Use this as a game-based relative-motion lesson. It is not a projectile-motion model; the frog moves by fixed jumps, and the main physics is predicting moving hazards and supports.
Discussion Prompts
Ask: Which lane is moving left or right? Why can a safe spot become unsafe after one time step? How does the frog's horizontal velocity change when it sits on a moving object in the water?
Teaching Moves
Pause before a jump and ask students to mark the frog's current position, the next intended position, and the moving object's expected position one time step later.
5. Concept Check
These questions are generated from the topic and the concept illustrated by the simulation. Use them after students have explored the model.
Concept Score
Correct first attempts build a streak and unlock higher point multipliers on this device.
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0current streak
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Answer each question once to build your streak.
1. What is the main physics decision in Physics Frogger?
2. Why can the frog be carried sideways on the water?
3. What makes a road square unsafe?
4. Why might waiting be better than jumping immediately?
5. What evidence should students use after a failed attempt?
Expert Challenge
Unlocks after 3 correct concept-check answers on this page.
1. A student says the frog died because the jump shape was wrong. What is the best correction?
2. Why does the frog move sideways while standing on a log or boat?
3. What does the road collision rule compare?
4. What makes a water position safe?
5. Why can the autoplay strategies be useful for teaching?
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