Soular
Submitted to TreeHacks 2016 Try it out live at http://spinnningoutofcontrol.com/ ;) Desktop only!
Screenshots
Inspiration
Current educational physics simulation tools such as PhET have various limitations. Most of them are dull and have unappealing graphics. We think interactive 3D physics simulations, which are more beautiful, intuitive and more fun to work with, will eventually replace the outdated PhET tools.
What it does
Solar is an interactive three dimensional solar system simulation that demonstrates simple planetary motions and Kepler's laws.
How we built it
We built this application using three.js, an abstraction layer on top of WebGL.
Challenges we ran into
Originally, we were to develop a multiplayer game based on HTML5 canvas similar to agar.io. Unfortunately, after hours of attempting, we realized that was is impossible to make such game under the given time constraint.
Accomplishments that we are proud of
When we realized that our idea doesn't work out, we were able to adapt.
What we learned
Hackathon is not about winning, it is about failing and not giving up. Three out of four hackers on our team are hackathon first-timers. When we failed, we did not let it go. Instead, we scrapped our ideas several times, starting from scratch three times before creating a satisfactory project.
What's next for Solar
Programming with three.js can be a daunting obstacle for Physics educational professionals who do not have enough programming experience. To facilitate the process of making high-quality interactive 3D simulations, the next step is creating another abstraction wrapper on top of three.js specifically for Physics simulations creation as well as an easy-to-use Graphical User Interface.
Built With
javascript three.js ammo.js webpack ramda.js