[HN Gopher] Show HN: Interactive physics simulations I built whi...
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Show HN: Interactive physics simulations I built while teaching my
daughter
I started teaching my daughter physics by showing her how things
actually work - plucking guitar strings to explain vibration,
mixing paints to understand light, dropping objects to see gravity
in action. She learned so much faster through hands-on exploration
than through books or videos. That's when I realized: what if I
could recreate these physical experiments as interactive
simulations? Lumen is the result - an interactive physics
playground covering sound, light, motion, life, and mechanics. Each
module lets you manipulate variables in real-time and see/hear the
results immediately. Try it: https://www.projectlumen.app/
Author : anticlickwise
Score : 62 points
Date : 2026-01-19 06:36 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.projectlumen.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.projectlumen.app)
| tetris11 wrote:
| 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
| vibefarm wrote:
| wholesome :)
| spuz wrote:
| 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.
| mzajc wrote:
| 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?
| languid-photic wrote:
| Fun! Any plan to open source it?
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| 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...
| tehlike wrote:
| Not the same level - but teaching my kid to use keyboard, and i
| vibecoded this:
| https://ai.studio/apps/drive/1MErVnhhK89peNh1RPa3y-ufFExG5Bn...
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| 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.
| mncharity wrote:
| 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.
| thimkerbell wrote:
| Extra points if its homepage can offer informative 80-character
| descriptions. (What is the term for this (suggested) web design?)
| gfaure wrote:
| I wish it were possible to link to a particular page (e.g. the
| optics simulation).
| jastanton wrote:
| 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)
| admiralrohan wrote:
| 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.
| mncharity wrote:
| 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 .
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(page generated 2026-01-22 23:01 UTC)