11–20 of 59 posts
Very good experience on the latest iPad. I wish there was a way to delete gears though. Also having the play button toggle pause/play would be nice.
I learned a bunch by watching the demo (big ? on the right)
The ability to save a configuration and share it would be pretty cool, but as well as that, other objects such as sticks which are attached to gears would be a lot of fun. But then I suppose you have to involve gravity :)
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I tested it on my 2010 android phone and it just barely works on that. More recent android tablets should be able to run it quite smoothly.
I've played a bit on my desktop browser and it's fun! Can't wait to show it to my kids. I've looked for similar things a long time ago and only found Java apps/applets. I like that this is browser based. Do you have a TODO features list? I don't know Coffeescript but this would be a good learning experience for me. I can think of at least one feature I would like to add.
I'm using the GearSketch environment in my PhD research to study different forms of support for learning about gears. For instance, I created a puzzle generator that creates concrete gear configurations based on abstract descriptions (e.g. there are two unmovable gears, one larger than the other; goal: connect them in such a way that the large gear will turn faster than the small gear). Using each student's solutions to earlier puzzles, the software tried to model their individual understanding of the gears domain and create new puzzles based on that. Turns out accurately modeling student knowledge is hard. ;)
The students using GearSketch are 10-11 years old, and understanding the interactions between the normal gears and chains is already quite challenging for this group, so my current focus is not on adding more elements. But like I said: I'd love to see others working on it and would be available to help.
Impossible to add the chains with a touchpad.
Impossible to add the chains with a touchpad.
Really enjoy the different take on the interface.. feel like you might be missing something in having modality though, seems like you could combine the actions for drawing a gear and drawing a belt, which would make it a bit neater. Any plans to add more complicated gear types? Would love to see something like this enabling easy explanations of watches and the like..
Don't let their old school-ness throw you off. They are both extremely well done and demonstrate in clear and simple language from first principles to finished object.