Why I made this

So I made a game where you can create truss structures and visualize the effects of different loads. Why did I do that?

1. I read about how loads on truss structures can be calculated while learning for an engineering mechanics exam.

2. AngeTheGreat released some astonishing videos about his own physics simulations and visualizations, so I wanted to try something similar.

3. I wanted to learn more about iterative methods for solving systems of linear equations.

Implementing the game took me four days of recreational coding. On the first day I implemented the construction mode. I spent the second day writing the code that creates the system of linear equations of a structure, and I also created a solver based on gaussian elimination with pivoting. Implementing the iterative methods, gradient descent and conjugate gradient method, was easier than implementing the solver. I spent one final day polishing and publishing the game on itch.io. The final version only uses conjugate gradients, as this method is very fast and the fact that it is only approximating the solution does not matter for this kind of for-educational-purposes-only-application.

Project files are available on GitHub https://github.com/DanielPSchenk/Truss-Simulator