Rigid-body simulator

• Student: Christopher Van Horn (2008).
• Purpose: Create a simulator for rigid bodies (moving and rotating spheres, immobile planes) that exhibit properties of gravity, collision and rebound, and friction. Display the simulation visually.
• Method: Three threads: (1) simulation, which computes location and velocity; (2) renderer, which displays frames in a window, and (3) control, which accepts commands from both a graphical and a text interface.
• What the student learned
  1. JOGL: open-source rendering package
  2. Physics rules
  3. Java design patterns
  4. Technical writing
  Code and documentation can be found at this site.