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Micro Simulations for Education

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Welcome to the MicroSims for Education website.

Announcement

Our paper on MicroSims is now available on the ArXiv server: MicroSims: A Framework for AI-Generated, Scalable Educational Simulations with Universal Embedding and Adaptive Learning Support

A MicroSim (or Micro-Simulation) is a simple interactive simulation program that can be quickly generated using AI to help teachers explain concepts to students. MicroSims can be imbedded in Intelligent Textbook or any website that allows you to add an iframe element.

MicroSims generators use a framework of rules (skills) that turn a brief descriptive text of a simulation into a shareable learning asset. MicroSims are unique for three reasons:

  1. AI-Assisted Generation - Standardized design patterns that enable educators to create custom simulations from natural language descriptions
  2. Universal Embedding - Iframe-based architecture that works seamlessly across any website, interactive textbook, or digital learning platform. Any web page can include a MicroSim with just a single HTML iframe element
  3. Transparent, Modifiable Code - No black boxes. Educators can customize simulations to match specific curriculum needs. With a single click you can be editing a MicroSim in a web-based editor. A creative commons license allows most teachers to use MicroSims in your classrooms without paying license fees.

The term MicroSim was coined by Valerie Lockhart in the summer of 2023 while she was working with generative AI. She found that both teachers and students could the powerful p5.js JavaScript library to created simulations with little or no training. Valerie has been working since early 2023 to introduce generative AI to schools and classrooms.

The MicroSim Metadata and a MicroSim Registry

One of our goals on this site is to create a library of MicroSims that can be search and a specific can be quickly modified generative AI application. However, we also know that users cannot reused what they cannot find. So therefore we have created a detailed JSON Schema for describing a MicroSim. By providing a link to this schema in your prompt you will find tha generative AI tools create high-quality metadata for each MicroSim. Creating an official MicroSim registry with advanced faceted search similar to the Hugging Face model search is on our roadmap.

How to Use This Site

We provide both a search and navigation system to help you find some MicroSims.

Here are some sample MicroSims from this site and others to get you started:

  • Bouncing Ball - our classic "Hello World" demo to get started
  • Projectile Motion - simulating firing a ball from a canon
  • String Harmonics - one version includes the use of sound
  • 3D Sphere - demonstrates the use of the 3D rendering libraries in p5.js
  • Expression Explorer - allows user to understand various components of equations
  • Spectrum From Microphone - allows a user to talk into their microphone and see the frequency spectrum
  • Stock Market Returns - shows a vertical bar chart with hover for US stock market returns over the last 30 years
  • Euler's Formula - allows the user to see how Euler's formula connects exponential functions with trigonometric functions
  • Conway's Game of Life - a demonstration of cellular automaton using the famous Conway's Game of Life algorithm
  • Book Build Workflow - a Mermaid.js diagram of the steps to build an intelligent textbook with MicroSims using Claude Code Skills