Alice

I tried to make a realistic walking animation in Alice. This was a difficult task. I started by trying to make the "nerd" model walk, but since it isn't programmed with joints, I couldn't make a realistic looking animation. I then moved on to the "ice skater" model, which does have joints in its legs. I succeeded in getting the joints to bend and move such that the model made a fairly realistic walking motion, but without a physics engine, I couldn't make the model push against the ground in a convincing manner.

This is a picture of the code I used to make the ice skater walk.

Sketchup

I created three different types of dyson sphere in sketchup. Pictured below is the "swarm" type of dyson sphere, in which a large number of distinct satellites orbit around the star, collecting energy. This one in particular is the simplest possible swarm dyson sphere, as it only has one orbit.

This is the "bubble" type of dyson sphere. Energy is taken from the star not by moving satellites, but instead by "statites" -- satellites that use solar sails to remain effectively stationary around a star.

Here is a picture of one of the statites.

This is a "Dyson Shell", in which the entire star is surrounded by a continuous spherical structure. Below is a picture of the outside of the dyson shell, and a picture of the star on the inside of the dyson shell (respectively).

Visual Python

Visual python is a module for python that allows users to very easily create three dimensional models. It is often used in education as a way to teach physics through computational simulation.

I used visual python to model a ball bouncing in a three dimensional box. Here is a picture of the visual python output.

Here is a picture of the code that created said output. Explanations of the code are in the comments.

Here is a picture of our model of the earth's orbit around the sun.

Here is a picture of the code that created that model. This code creates two objects -- the earth, and the sun. The earth is pulled towards the sun by the force of gravity according to the law of gravitation, with an initial velocity that causes it to orbit instead of being dragged into the sun. If the earth were to be dragged into the sun, then the loop would break and the simulation would stop.

Here are some of the cool shapes the orbit trail makes.

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