After a careful evaluation of many pros and cons, today we replaced the “turn” command in Karel the Robot in NCLab with two commands “left” and “right”. The main reason was that in more complicated tasks such as navigating through a maze, the robot was basically only rotating, resembling a small tornado. I already changed
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Karel the Robot vs. Scratch
Today NCLab was presented to a computer science instructor at Coral Academy (CA) in Reno. CA is an exemplary high school for math, science, and engineering. The instructor liked it a lot and specifically he said that Karel the Robot was much better than Scratch (another
Starting a Collaboration with SWE
This is a 3D solid model of the SWE logo created in NCLab. We are very proud to join our forces with the Society of Women Engineers in outreach to K-12 education!
New Video Tutorial on Solid Modeling with PLaSM
PLaSM (Programming Language of Solid Geometry) is a powerful library for 3D Design. This technology is sometimes also called Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) and it is part of all modern CAD systems. One can use PLaSM in NCLab to create parts of machines, buildings, and much more. Try it yourself, it is very simple and
First Tutorial Videos Created
Today I created a first tutorial video “NCLab for K-12” that describes what NCLab is and how K-12 teachers can use it in classroom. Since I was in the recording room and I had some time left, I also created a first tutorial video for Karel the Robot. I am not very satisfied with any
NCLab PLaSM Tutorial
New tutorial for PLaSM was finished, see http://femhub.com/nclab-tutorials/. PLaSM stands for Programming Language of Solid Modeling, and it allows you to create advanced 3D designs. The language is very simple. For example typing CUBOID([1, 1, 1]) will render a unit cube. There are various other
NCLab Introductory Course
An introductory course called Meet Your New Graphing Calculator is available on the Tutorial Page. It begins with explaining is simple words what cloud computing is about and what benefits it brings to NCLab users. Then the reader learns how to create an account and log in, the meaning of the desktop icons, how to
NCLab’s Mesh Editor
NCLab’s Mesh Editor (ME) can be used to generate meshes on geometries created using the GE (or imported in XML). Mesh generation can be done manually (triangles and/or quads) or automatic (only triangles at the moment). Elements can have curved edges and meshes can have variable density in subdomains. Meshes can be passed to the
NCLab’s Geometry Editor
NCLab’s Geometry Editor (GE) can be used to create 2D geometries for computer models. It has intuitive controls and some nice features such as circular arcs, subdomains, and XML import. Geometries can be passed to Mesh Editor (ME) for manual or automatic mesh generation.
Link to NCLab on HNMI Home Page
Link to NCLab was added to the home page of HNMI (Holistic Numerical Methods Institute) at the University of Southern Florida. HNMI is a world-leading resource for students who learn numerical methods. It features hundreds of YouTube videos, printed learning materials, programs, and now the visitors also can do online computations in their web browser