I've been playing around using Reality Composer on the iPad to build an interactive, augmented reality model of the Solar System. What I love most about Reality Composer is how easily it lets students blend digital design with mathematical and scientific concepts. I used various physics and animation tools in RC to create true-to-scale sizes and orbits.
Note that while we can make the planet sizes perfectly to scale, the physical distances between them are not!
Step-by-Step Lesson Guide
If you'd like to try this project with your classes, here is a quick breakdown of how I set it up on the iPad. My lessons slides and a walkthrough video are also attached.
- Clear the Grid: Open Reality Composer, create a new project, and delete any default starting objects so your space is completely empty.
- Build the Sun: Tap the + icon, add a basic sphere, and open the properties panel. Scale it up to 1000% (the app's maximum size) and adjust the colour and material style to give it a stellar shine.
- Add Mercury: Add a second sphere. Because the Sun's diameter is roughly 285 times larger than Mercury's, a true proportional scale would make Mercury about 3.5%. Since Reality Composer only uses whole numbers, round it up to 4%.
- Animate the Orbit Trigger: Tap Behaviours (+) and choose a Custom behaviour. Set the trigger to Scene Start so the action starts immediately when the project plays.
- Configure the Action: Select Orbit as the action sequence. Under Affected Objects, select your planet. Under Center, select the Sun.
- Apply the Maths: Reality Composer limits animation sequences to a maximum of 5 minutes. To make the speeds relative, I set Neptune (the slowest planet) as my baseline to complete 1 lap in 5 minutes. Working backward, I calculated exactly how many laps the inner planets must complete in that exact same window.
To help you build out the rest of the planets, I recommend having students keep them organised in a straight line while configuring their individual behaviours.
I’ve recorded a complete video tutorial breaking down how to set up this project step-by-step.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOMi8EPBm6AI’m also sharing the complete slide deck I used for the lesson here - you can grab it via the links below.
- Scale Resource: If you have extra time in your lesson, the website If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel is a fantastic way to show students the massive gaps between these planet models!
If you've used Reality Composer for science or maths integration before, I'd love to hear how you approached it. Always looking for new ideas to try out!
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