Modeling Software.

The other day, I wrote about a school who used modeling software to calculate information in a real life situation.  I know my school district has budgetary issues so even if I wanted any of the most well known programs, the district couldn't afford any of them.

So I decided to check and see if there was free modeling software out there I could use in class.  I would love to give my students opportunities to use it.

First is Maxima, a computer algebra system which covers a wide variety of functions.  Although it was developed back in the 1960's at MIT, it has been updated on a regular basis and has an active community.  It runs on Windows, Unix, and MacOS10 along with a few other systems.  The program is able to plot functions in two and three dimensions while providing accurate results. 

Second is Scilab, similar to Mathlab but free. This program is a free and open software for numerical calculations which operates on Linux, Windows and MacOS 10. The program states it provides mathematical operations, data analysis, simulation, two and three dimensional visualization, optimisation, statistics, modeling, control system study, signal processing, application development, etc.


If you are interested in modeling complex systems using mechanical, electrical, electronic, hydraulic, thermal, control, electric power or process-oriented subcomponents, then Modelica is perfect because it is a open source free program designed to do precisely that. This programs comes with a 306 page documentation for version 3.4 released back in April.  There is a library filled with free and commercial components and funcitons.

Rather than list hundreds of other possibilities, I've included the link for a list of computer simulation software you can explore to your hearts desire.  Yes its a wiki list but as with any other list, some of the information may be wrong or out of date but the few I explored worked well and all of them sounded interesting.  Unfortunately, I do not have time to explore it all.

I think once the computer department gets caught up and organized, I'll download a couple things to play with before I have them put on any computers. Its hard to even discuss modeling in Math if we don't offer students the chance to use it.

 Let me know what you think.  Have a great day.