CS382:Software

Software

Foundations of Modelling

Firefox

Static Modeling

• Google Earth. Free. All platforms.

Fire

• [NetLogo] version 4.0

Visualization

• Web Browser
• Google account
• Open Office

Structural Modeling

Bridge Construction Set

• A bridge-building computer game. It offers a fairly detailed 3-D OpenGL model visualization. The game is organized into stages of increasing complexity. Available for Mac OS X / Linux / Windows.
  • After completing the demo levels, it seems that we might want to actually get licenses. The game is actually really fun. Different levels use different bridge building materials, such as iron (the basic component) steel, and cable.
  • We decided to use BCS because it visualizes the bridges in 3-D, and 3-D modeling software should make the students more comfortable translating their models to physical Knex models. (described later)
• Students will be expected to come to the Dennis 224 Lab to use the Bridge Construction Set full version ( if we choose to purchase it ) or they can download the demo on to their personal machines.

Rocket Modeling

• RocketModeler II

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/rocket/rktsim.html

With this software you can investigate how a rocket flies by changing the values of different design variables.

• Water Rocket Fun v.3.4.

http://www.seeds2lrn.com/rocketSoftware.html

The main page that we can focus on: contains downloadable software for a flight of water rocket: Called : Water Rocket Fun v.3.4

• • Descriptions at unit page

Computational Sociology and Agent Based Modeling

• Java
• NetLogo

Predator Prey ( Lynx Hare )

• Custom Lynx-Hare model based on Wolf Sheep Systems Dynamics netlogo model

Chaos

• Lorenz attractor in 3D
  • Lorenz attractor C source code generates values in 3 dimensional coordinate.
  • Students can generate infinite patterns of values by changing 3 parameters in 3 non-linear differential equations.
  • The values can be plotted with GNUplot like this picture.
  • There is the source code of Lorenz attractor for second life, but it includes numbers of bugs.
• Excel for statistical computation
• Yahoo! Answers: I'm looking for a good weather prediction software
  • e.g. Looping image of temperature, pressure, precipitation