Simulation

Simulation and Engineering Software

Physics Models

Imagine you built a simulator so that when you added weight to the climber, the ribbon dimensions got bigger. If a spreadsheet created calculations that boiled down to simple algebraic formulas, those could be put into a video game.If someone improves the spreadsheet, they can swap in a different algebraic constant.

There is also Finite Element Analysis software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_finite_element_software_packages

Dynamics, basic principles relationships, materials properties,...

Codebase_Analysis#Physics_Engines

Spreadsheets

Ribbon dimensions, performance trade-offs, overall interactions matrix.

3-D Design Files

Collada introduction: http://keithcu.com/cgi-bin/hg.cgi?raw-file/6bcb243bfc7d/docs/COLLADA.odp

Blender

Complete tutorial: http://www.cdschools.org/54223045235521/lib/54223045235521/BlenderBasics2.42a.pdf

http://www.blender.org/education-help/tutorials/tutorial-folder/blender-user-interface-tutorial/

http://www.blender.org/education-help/tutorials/#c836

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro

Other Software

NASA's free code: http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/

FEA: http://www.fenics.org/wiki/FEniCS_Project

Matlab: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Octave