Measuring Angles and Augmented Reality....FUN!

This week I had a very different numeracy lesson with my Year 5's. We used Augmented Reality to measure and create angles and converting distances from feet to metres. We used an Augmented Reality App called MathsMovesUSkiJumper, taken from the MathsMovesU website. This app is a lot of fun. You will need to go to MathsMovesU to print out the PDF trigger that allows the ski ramp to appear before your eyes.

The purpose behind this lesson was to measure angles, conversion, graphing and collaboration. You will need to activate the App, point the camera at the trigger. This will allow the students to use the two levers on the iPad screen to angle the ramp and release the skier. The skier will land and the app will give you a measurement in feet of how far the skier jumped. 

The Learning Intentions for my students was to ensure they took a screen shot of each jump, find an app or website to convert feet to metres and form angles from screen shot to measure the best jump  and angle.

Using the MathMovesU PDF
Leavers to angle the ramp, measurement recorded in top left corner.

As a result of all this 'Open Ended Numeracy and problem solving', there seemed to be a very blended approach to using a variety of iPad Apps to complete the task. The students were required to present their work as graphs, representing the ski jump attempts completed. The graph was to represent the angle and distance jumped. They also presented the work in Keynote or another app as the final task. 

Some of my students took this a little further and created an Aurasma Augmented experience and filmed a short reflection depicting the session and findings.

The students took screen shots of the ramp and jump. Once the distance was calculated the students needed to convert the feet to metres and measure the angle. The conversion was mainly completed on a website converter. The measuring of the ramp angles was completed using A++ Measuring App. This gave a 'near enough' angle measurement. Refer to images below. 

A++ Measuring App
iPhone App that is free

Red line is the angle draw on image.

This session was very engaging and placed the enforces on angles and measurement conversion in a hands on approach through augmented reality. The students produced angles using a ski jump, which meant a result needed to be achieved in sending a skier down the ramp. There is also a bridge making App linked to this site/app.

Not only did the students love this activity, I enjoyed it too. Good luck and let me know how you go with your ski jump numeracy lessons.