This program was written to help people succeed in college science and engineering courses. It is a virtual physics laboratory designed to extend the mathematical modeling capability of our Physics-1 program. It provides a convenient way of experimenting with the concepts of classical mechanics in the class-room or at home, allowing the student to gain real understanding of the material taught in first year college physics for scientists and engineers.
Some virtual laboratory programs attempt to replicate the physical laboratory by manipulating simulated objects like balls and springs on the computer screen. MechLab promotes a deeper level of understanding by having the student manipulate the properties of time, space and objects. The values assigned to these properties then are inserted into the laws of nature to create mathematical models of the physical system being studied. Our intention with MechLab is not to replace the valuable real laboratory experience but to provide a clearer understanding of the connection between what happens in the lab and the underlying physical laws.
With MechLab you may model free body problems, energy and fields, pendulum and other rotors, collisions and scattering, and planetary systems. Because of the power of mathematical modeling you can create, at essentially no cost, experiments which even large laboratories can not carry out in the physical lab, and have the results immediately translated into a data stream. For each model you may view the program output in several ways including graphs, tables and animation. Below are links to some screen shots of the program output.
The program requires one of the 32 bit Windows operating systems, Win95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP, and 32 megabytes of RAM. The installed size of the program on the hard drive is about 1.5 megabytes.
To help you understand what the MechLab program is all about you may download the Help file and run through the index to get a feel for what is covered. The file is less than 200K and should download quickly. Feel free to throw it away or share it with others when you are done with it. Click on MechLab help to retrieve the file. Then just find it in your download folder and double click on it to run it.
This program is also ideal for non-scientists who are just curious about what makes the world go around. You have an opportunity to simulate real world systems and experiment in a low cost/low risk way. Like any other field of study, science is easy when your intuition about how the world works is correct. Intuition is a learned skill. In this program you have a tool to sharpen your intuition about some of the laws of nature.
DESCRIPTION PRICE Individual copies $29.00 Ten copy license $200 Network/Site license Call to discuss
Pennsylvania residents are subject to 6% sales tax.
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To pay with a paper check send the check for the purchase price plus tax if you are a Pennsylvania resident to: M. Casco Associates, 81 Turkey Ridge Road, East Stroudsburg, PA, 18301. Do not forget to indicate which product you want, your delivery preference and include your "ship to" address for a copy on diskettes or email address for electronic pick up.