Simulation science in the classroom

October 12, 2006 2:53 AM

Need help finding classroom demonstratable examples of software simulation.

My professor assigned me the rather vague task of collecting 3-6 examples of computer simulations of the physical world to use in a lesson. These simulations can be agent-based, or use the system-dynamics or discrete-event paradigm. That is to say, they can pretty much be anything. The general idea is to show how even basic simulation science can help solve problems.

Other criteria, info:

• The audience will be high-school and college teachers from around the area, who have expressed interest. They don't know how to program.
• My professor would like to assign some kind of homework to them. He mentioned that he'd like it if they were somehow able to alter or tweak the simulation in a purposeful way, so that they could talk about it next class.
• Economic simulations are a plus.
• Good, novel, interesting, or "cool" visualizations are a plus.

Google has turned up some interesting things, but I haven't hit the bullseye. I will definitely be talking more with my professor about this to see what he really needs, but in the mean time I'm asking MeFi for help.

Here's one thing I found, to give you guys an idea: Anylogic demo models.

Thanks so much in advance. I really appreciate anything you guys can link to, or really just anything to get me going in the right direction.

posted by carson to education (9 comments total)

liquid flow in possessing, smoke simulation in processing
posted by delmoi at 3:22 AM on October 12, 2006

sodaconstructor.
posted by delmoi at 3:25 AM on October 12, 2006

May not quite be what you are after, but... http://www.morethanyouthink.com/ was a site accompanied by a poster campaign on buses, trying to show how computers are involved in more than you think. It's not that interactive, but there are demos of stuff like why three buses arrive at the same time, sensitive dependence on initial conditions, predictive sms messaging and other stuff. It's aimed at high school kids.
posted by handee at 3:26 AM on October 12, 2006

Dresden simulation of traffic flow
posted by sien at 4:50 AM on October 12, 2006

The Open Source Physics Project
posted by futility closet at 4:58 AM on October 12, 2006

Not sure if it's what you want, but NetLogo and StarLogo are both pretty idiot-proof toolkits that come with plenty of tweakable prepared models.
posted by themel at 5:06 AM on October 12, 2006

Check out all of these.
posted by dmd at 6:20 AM on October 12, 2006

We had to use STELLA in our engineering courses. It was actually very neat, the new versions look so much nicer. There is a trial version available for you to play with.
STELLA web site
posted by Yavsy at 6:55 AM on October 12, 2006

Check out JavaLab by Chris Mihos. It's a great set of in-browser galaxy simulation related applets.
posted by headlessagnew at 9:39 AM on October 12, 2006