Do you know of any good science Sims?

[Shmi]

A young man recently showed me a web page on Kirchoff´s rules he had to study.   It was dreadful, so turgid. It
made me remember nostalgically the UK Nuffield course I followed which promoted active learning where you
discovered the rules, you didn´t learn them.

 Of course there was a big flaw in this method: the equipment was expensive and the experiments were unreliable.
When did a school experiment ever work perfectly?  How could you discover a linear law if your equipment introduced
a systematic error?

 It hit me like a thunderbolt.  Why not Simulated Physics labs, Simulated  Chemistry lab, Simulated Biology lab etc.
where everything works as it should in the ideal world as a simulation and get the kids to follow the old Nuffield
approach? Discovering things for themselves.

Even better, couldn´t you also have Simulated SCIENCE CLUB where the little darlings could really push the limits.  
After all, safety rules don´t apply when it is a Sim Scientist which has their fingers blown off?

Having seen the quality of present simulations in games and web-based activities all that would be needed is to
ensure physical laws are obeyed.  I envisage an empty bench, a store of apparatus and materials, and a Sim
Scientist to obey their orders. That poor little sim scientist is vital the little monsters will be trying very hard to
torment him - ghastly chemical stenches, explosians etc.  He will react when the experiment works and be sad when
it fails.

I expect someone has already thought of this, although I wonder if they would have realised what a useful resource
the Nuffield schemes would be with everything already thought out for discovery learning.

I would be interested in your feedback.  Is there anything like this going on?  Who would be good to contact?



Post Edited ( 06-24-04 20:41 )

[Atom]

I am looking now!

[Atom]

This one is fun.

http://www.ambromley.co.uk/fizz.html

[Atom]

All I can find are papers. Why are so many of these science people obsessed with papers? Grrr.

[McBrain]

Atom wrote:
This one is fun.

http://www.ambromley.co.uk/fizz.html

LOL!!!

It's fun to push you around!

[AphelionHellion]

Has anyone ever played Pontifex or its sequel, Bridge Construction Set? They're great engineering games, especially
the second one. The idea - you've got canyons and rivers to bridge so that a road or railroad can cross. You get
different materials (iron, steel, heavy steel, cable, hydraulics, road deck) to build a bridge that will support the traffic
across it (and resist wind and water current, if applicable). And what's tougher, sometimes some materials are limited
and unavailable, and you only have a certain amount of money to spend on materials.
Before I rediscovered Orbiter, I was glued to this game!

[AphelionHellion]

Ah, here we go:
http://www.chroniclogic.com/pontifex2.htm
(Pontifex 2 and BCS are the same thing, they just changed the name)
Download the demo, you will NOT regret it. Easy to learn, nearly impossible to master


to what you said about learning, Shmi. I couldn't agree more After all, that's why we're all playing Orbiter in
the first place, right? I can't speak for anyone else but I sure as fark wouldn't have been able to sit still in a classroom
long enough to learn all the principles I've learned using this sim. Nothing beats learning by direct observation
And yes, by making mistakes
Hehe

[Shmi]

AphelionHellion wrote:
Has anyone ever played Pontifex or its sequel, Bridge Construction Set? They're great engineering games, especially
the second one. The idea - you've got canyons and rivers to bridge so that a road or railroad can cross. You get
different materials (iron, steel, heavy steel, cable, hydraulics, road deck) to build a bridge that will support the traffic
across it (and resist wind and water current, if applicable). And what's tougher, sometimes some materials are limited
and unavailable, and you only have a certain amount of money to spend on materials.
Before I rediscovered Orbiter, I was glued to this game!

This is just the sort of thing I was looking for Aphelion Yet again you come up trumps

This reminds me, we also used to play with a game called TIM involving gravity, fans,  trampolines making
things work by combining apparatus together often in the manner of that car add where one piece sets off another
und so weiter. It seems to have disappeared, does anyone know where it has gone, its new alias perhaps?

[Shmi]

Nothing beats learning by direct observation
And yes, by making mistakes
Hehe

I agree, although Perhaps I would also include learning because you are motivated to give the little sucker of a sim
scientist a really hard time.

[DocHoliday]

Oh yeah, The Incredible Machine (TIM) is great. But kind of reminds me of Tom&Jerry screwed up physics.. But hey, for
kids that is probably even too advanced

I'm pretty sure though Shmi that the REALLY useful and succesful projects of this type are not available on the net
free, because there is a LOT of commercial potential, so why offer it free, when you can rip someone off 3-times it's
cost

[reekchaa]

Pontifex 2 is Awesomely cool.    I still haven't figured out some of the highest levels yet ...Don't wanna look at
the 'cheats' just yet.  And OH YEAH.. nothing better than the God Mode  

[AphelionHellion]

Shmi: Aw shux
Did you try BCS yet? Didja didja didja? Hehe!
The thing I like about that game is the varying solutions you can come up with for the same problem.
For instance, if you stretch heavy cables between the bridge anchors and put up struts on TOP of the cables
supporting the roadway, you get a very strong, cheap bridge without needing any strong steel supports.
Of course in real life the ground you're building on might not be strong enough for this sort of thing, but the fact that
you can only anchor the bridge in pre-arranged places makes it harder than it would be in real life, anyway.


That reminds me... Aha, I found it
http://www.ae4rv.com/games/nuke.htm

This was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread, even though it's not a physics simulator per se. It's a little
nuclear reactor simulator. The object is to generate as much power as possible using the fuel you have - but if you let
any of the component temperatures get too high, things start breaking, and you have to shut down the reactor to fix
'em. If you don't, you may wind up in deep doo-doo
Runs in your browser and requires Flash. Read the instructions to play.

[AphelionHellion]

Booooyeah! Jackpot!

http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html

A site with a LOT of Java applets that let you tweak and manipulate demonstrations of  oscillations and waves, acoustics,
electromagnetism, radiation, quantum physics and more. Really great way to visualize a lot of different concepts! I've only
tried 3 or 4 of 'em so far, but they have a lot of different options  
Lets write whoever put this site up and thank 'em

[freespace2dotcom]

I think I liked the bridge builder better.

[AphelionHellion]

Glad you guys like the bridge game. It's good to know I'm not the only one who can be entertained by pasting steel beams
together for hours on end
We should get together and exchange bridges some time (you can save 'em as .bcs files I believe)

[AphelionHellion]

Yeah 1541 KilowattHours average with light equipment damage. Top that!  
(The nuclear reactor game, of course)

[AphelionHellion]

1570 KwH, very light damage! Whee

[freespace2dotcom]

Tough, but fun! that nuclear game is.. I got 1740 KW. beat that.

just remember that as you run low on fuel, the rod cools down so you have to notch it up and utilize higher
percentages. I had the thing darn near red-lined the whole time until the thing couldn't generate enough heat,
otherwise I'd have had an even higher rating.

have a nice day.

[AphelionHellion]

Yeah as the fuel runs out you need to pull the control rods out to maintain the temperature.
The part I always have the tough time with is getting it up to operating temperature ASAP without overheating it. I have the
control rods all the way out the first day or so and then I drop it back to zero and turn the coolant all the way on. It's
easy to end up redlining or underpowered, though.
Once you've got it all balanced out it's pretty easy to slowly pull the rods out as the fuel is used up

Ya know, the controls aren't really that different from the Vespucci's fusion system, in some ways... How about a fission
spacecraft for orbiter? You could do it two different ways - using the electricity to power an ion engine, or directly
squirting hydrogen (or whatever you want to use for fuel) through the core to heat it up and blow it out the nozzle.
The latter system would be tricky, as you'd need to heat up the core (or heat exchanger if applicable) when you're ready to
do a burn, and then cool it down as soon as you're done so it doesn't melt down (without propellant running through it and
removing heat).

[AphelionHellion]

1783 and very light damage! W00t

Sorry I'm too lazy to upload a screenshot, but hey, I wouldn't lie to ya.
Not about this anyway

Pontifex 2 is still way more fun, though, of course.
I built this one bridge where the cars going across it "jump" a gap between these two "ramps". Ultra low cost

[AphelionHellion]

Freespace: Ahahahaha cool! That two stage refrigerator page is awesome
Probably takes 6 or 7 times as much power as the computer itself uses, but hey, car and truck fanatics do crazier more
wasteful crap every day

[AphelionHellion]

Whoops, that last reply was to the other thread.

[AphelionHellion]

1843 KwH average and VL damage

OW!! Ok, ok, I'll stop!

[freespace2dotcom]

1875 KW.

[AphelionHellion]

Freespace: Bahh you just HAD to keep at it 'till you beat me, eh?

Oh well, nice one!