Remember playing The Incredible Machine? It was one of the only good educational games of the early 90s -- maybe all of the 90s.

The UK Science Museum has created a set of online games to support their Launchpad installation of physics topics. The games, dubbed Launchball, play like a more abstract version of The Incredible Machine. You use electricity, wind, magnetism, circuits, and other paraphernalia to lead a ball from start to goal. The production value is very high, although it did take me a while to figure out that I had to mouseover the different colored blocks to figure out what they represented. Maybe a bit too modernist for the kiddies, but it's always such a pleasant surprise to find an educational game that doesn't suck.

And for you rogueish user generated content fans, there's also a mode that lets players create and share their own levels.

(via Adverblog)