alt.hn

1/19/2026 at 6:36:57 AM

Show HN: Interactive physics simulations I built while teaching my daughter

 https://www.projectlumen.app/

by anticlickwise

1/22/2026 at 4:53:48 PM

Not sure if it's just Firefox, but a lot of things seem to be rendering incorrectly and very slowly for me. The text for the descriptions is very small compared to the rest of the text which makes it kind of hard to read. Also, on the Spectrum demo, the prism is displayed up and to the left of the light rays. After a few minutes the pages just grind to a halt so I can't really explore the rest.

by spuz

1/22/2026 at 6:32:45 PM

It's not just Firefox, a lot of things are broken. For example, clicking on either ball in "The Falls" moves it up and lets you drag it, but they snap into the same place. The text also reminds me of how ChatGPT writes. Was this made with a LLM?

by mzajc

1/22/2026 at 5:32:02 PM

Kudos! I love seeing things people have built for their kids.

This reminds me a bit of this site, which has been around for a long time and has a similar motivation: teach physics concepts using simulations:

https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/filter?subjects=phy...

by rahimnathwani

1/22/2026 at 5:45:18 PM

Not the same level - but teaching my kid to use keyboard, and i vibecoded this: https://ai.studio/apps/drive/1MErVnhhK89peNh1RPa3y-ufFExG5Bn...

by tehlike

1/22/2026 at 5:51:52 PM

This is cool!

I'm curious whether you're using this to teach initial familiarity, or as the first step toward touch typing?

For touch typing, I think Typing Club is a good place to start for kids. And then Keybr to develop full fluency. And then Monkeytype to develop speed.

EDIT - when I wrote this comment I had only opened the link on my phone. Now I see it on desktop it's clear that the on-screen keyboard is intended to teach key positions without the user looking down at their keyboard. It's good.

by rahimnathwani

1/22/2026 at 7:04:49 PM

In case anyone else was curious, `ai.studio/apps` apps apparently require a google account login by default. Google ai-mode says allowing public access is an author option, but then (1) API costs are borne by the author, and (2) there are some (unclear) compliance implications.

by mncharity

1/23/2026 at 6:17:35 AM

This is cool

by anticlickwise

1/22/2026 at 7:55:57 PM

Two quick errata: In Sound / Biology, a control inversion: low pitch (slider and sound) animates blue short hairs, and high pitch animates long red. In the windtunnel > Wing, lift is reported but the airstream remains undeflected.[1]

[1] randomly, fwiw, I've used cloud deck slicing to illustrate downdraft, eg https://imgur.com/4hhZ7zq https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HIddtgGzDE . Or perhaps moments of "yoink" like... err, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfY5ZQDzC5s&t=154s .

by mncharity

1/23/2026 at 6:16:12 AM

Yes. I will have to get the physics right for the air stream. will work on that. Thanks

by anticlickwise

1/22/2026 at 3:36:41 PM

This is pretty nice! I was quite impressed with the colour mixing one in particular

(At the same time I was reminded a bit by the subtext of the web series Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, especially when pumping the heart to deliver body's needed cargo, like aspic and white sauce -- but that's just my brainrot showing)

I can imagine this being pretty fun on a tablet

by tetris11

1/23/2026 at 6:19:12 AM

yes. This was designed for the Ipad

by anticlickwise

1/22/2026 at 6:34:32 PM

Love this, simulations are great. My nit pick is around how fast these animations are. You blink and you miss it. I can imagine children having more difficult time with this than myself as an adult. (For context I started with the sound animations: The Invisible Dance -- Shape the Wave & The Journey)

by jastanton

1/23/2026 at 8:00:56 AM

will work on slowing it down

by anticlickwise

1/22/2026 at 7:39:04 PM

Looking great. Having some context on the pages would be great, I can understand the grass-rabbit-fox dynamics but not clear with the the rest of the simulations.

And you can persist the page in query param. So someone can directly sent people to particular simulation with data.

by admiralrohan

1/23/2026 at 6:22:03 AM

I am adding more context soon.

I will work on the url query param persistence - I know its annoying at the moment

by anticlickwise

1/24/2026 at 1:53:03 PM

Unrelated to the question you posted, but how are you testing these PCBs? Specifically, are you using any software architecture for data logging and running tests?

by rajkumar14

1/22/2026 at 5:59:51 PM

Extra points if its homepage can offer informative 80-character descriptions. (What is the term for this (suggested) web design?)

by thimkerbell

1/22/2026 at 6:28:30 PM

I wish it were possible to link to a particular page (e.g. the optics simulation).

by gfaure

1/22/2026 at 5:09:56 PM

Fun! Any plan to open source it?

by languid-photic

1/23/2026 at 12:21:30 AM

Very cool!

by nemath

1/22/2026 at 3:50:05 PM

wholesome :)

by vibefarm

1/22/2026 at 6:09:17 PM

[dead]

by animanoir