Interactive STEM Lesson
Golden Minutes
Vectors, motion and a dispatcher's decision against the clock
An ambulance is already on its way – but should the dispatch centre also launch a medical drone carrying an automated external defibrillator (AED)? Students use vectors, displacement, velocity and wind to compare the two, then revisit their decision each time new information comes in.
- Ages 14–16
- Maths + Physics
- About 40 minutes
- Pairs or small teams
Interactive lesson only. Runs in the browser. No account required.
Maths • Physics
About the model
The map, distances and times are a teaching model. The lesson compares delivery time only – it makes no medical claim about the effect of an AED, and the extra time for the drone's manoeuvre is a task condition, not an aviation rule.
How the lesson works
Six screens take students from the emergency call to the dispatcher's final decision.
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Ambulance and patient
Using the system data, students write the position of the patient relative to the ambulance in terms of the vectors a and b.
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Two routes
They compare two ambulance routes and discover that the same displacement does not mean the same distance travelled.
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The wind
They add the drone's velocity relative to the air and the wind velocity, then check whether the drone is heading straight for the patient.
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The tower
With collinear vectors they locate an obstacle on the flight path and see how a manoeuvre changes the drone's time.
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Traffic
A traffic update arrives: using s = v · t, they recalculate the ambulance's time section by section.
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The decision
They bring all the information together in a decision log and make the final call as the dispatcher.
Maths, physics and skills
Maths and physics covered
- Vector reasoning: vector addition and subtraction, linear combinations
- Displacement versus distance travelled
- Wind velocity: velocity relative to the air and relative to the ground
- Collinear vectors and the scalar k
- Speed and time: s = v · t
Reasoning and decision-making
- Making a decision based on data
- Revisiting the decision when the data change
- Separating what the model says from what it does not say
- Explaining a choice to a partner or team
Teacher guidance
Suggested timing and discussion points are also available in the lesson, under the For teachers button.
What you need
- One device per pair or team – or a single projector for the whole class
- No printed materials
- About 40 minutes
Running the lesson
- Answers are checked automatically: a pointer after the first wrong attempt, a hint after the second, a solution after the third.
- New information is revealed step by step, so the decision can change along the way.
- Decimal answers can be typed with a point or a comma; fractions such as 1/2 also work.
- Progress is saved automatically on the device.
Ready to take the call?
Open the interactive lesson on a projector or on your students' devices.