https://stem.northeastern.edu/programs/ayp/fieldtrips/activities/wpbd/
West Point Bridge Design is an open-source bridge-builder computer simulation produced by Northeastern University's Center for STEM Education. The program has an interesting animation quality, and introduces forces, loads, materials, and structural design with a variety of realistic real-world tests.
Because this program is open-source and only 40mb of download files, I feel like most computers would be able to download this program and run it efficiently as it is essentially bare minimum. Contextually, students would have to understand each 'piece' that the program would be identifying, i.e., loads, forces, materials, and strength properties of those materials over distances. However, I feel as if students wouldn't need that much of an introduction into the program - it would be very reasonable for them to mess around with it, and try some things out on their own. However, on the other hand, it would be useful for them to know what they were doing before hand so they could get the most out of it, but it's really teacher preference. Do you want the students to find some of these properties out on their own, or do you want to teach them basics beforehand?
West Point Bridge Design is an open-source bridge-builder computer simulation produced by Northeastern University's Center for STEM Education. The program has an interesting animation quality, and introduces forces, loads, materials, and structural design with a variety of realistic real-world tests.
Because this program is open-source and only 40mb of download files, I feel like most computers would be able to download this program and run it efficiently as it is essentially bare minimum. Contextually, students would have to understand each 'piece' that the program would be identifying, i.e., loads, forces, materials, and strength properties of those materials over distances. However, I feel as if students wouldn't need that much of an introduction into the program - it would be very reasonable for them to mess around with it, and try some things out on their own. However, on the other hand, it would be useful for them to know what they were doing before hand so they could get the most out of it, but it's really teacher preference. Do you want the students to find some of these properties out on their own, or do you want to teach them basics beforehand?