This week I'm getting some school students to work with me at the National Physical Laboratory London. They will be learning to program using Gideros, in particular studying Box2D. I intend to get them to set up a molecular dynamics simulation with several molecules bouncing around on screen, possibly with joints so you can have a water molecule with 3 atoms etc. It's probably their first exposure to programming and I chose Gideros because of its simple language (Lua) and easy-to-use IDE. On the physics side I'll get them to check if Box2D correctly conserves energy and momentum, concepts they have probably learned in school. I suspect it will as Box2D solves mechanical laws accurately AFAIK.
At the end of the week, they will install their MD apps on their phones and show off to their friends! I think it's a fun way to get started in programming. As a 1980s dinosaur (started programming on the ZX Spectrum) I'm keen to encourage youngsters to program and I think the whole thing of mobile development is very exciting -- and Gideros is a nice way to do that. Who knows maybe they will turn out to be the next Oliver Twins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twins
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Meet Kate. Grey is her favourite colour. Maths is her favourite subject. Decency is her favourite type of behaviour.
She definitely does not like jewellery or modelling, but loves aeroplanes and other machines made of aluminium.
Meet Kate. Grey is her favourite colour. Maths is her favourite subject. Decency is her favourite type of behaviour.
She definitely does not like jewellery or modelling, but loves aeroplanes and other machines made of aluminium.
So in one week we have several interactive apps with physics -- tested on computer and installed on an Android phone! I also wanted to run it on an iPhone but didn't quite manage owing to Apple's Byzantine encryption/registration process (I will probably ask for help on this soon...!). We did get it to run on the Xcode simulator.
I will post a video of the apps later.
Likes: ar2rsawseen, talis, plamen, Platypus
https://github.com/gideros/gideros
https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnBlackburn1975