Software Review: Crocodile Physics

ScienceMan Rating:

Relevant Links:	Home Page
Company/Vendor:	Crocodile Clips Ltd.
Price:	$400 US - 5 Computer License, site licensing available
Platforms:	Windows, OS X
Latest Version:	v601

Pros:

Simulates many physics disciplines, built in examples and tutorials, intuitive, fun to use.

Cons:

Forces and motion simulation ability somewhat limited.

The Review:

Crocodile Physics portrays itself as an all-round physics simulator, but where it really shines is in it's simulation of circuitry.

One of the coolest features of Crocodile Physics is the ability to build circuits with pictures of actual devices - the circuit items actually can be manipulated (turned on, off) with resulting animations of bulbs lighting up (or blowing up!), fuses burning out, voltmeters pulsing, etc.

croc clip circuit

There is a very good selection of electrical components to choose from:

Connecting them is very intuitive and easy - just grab the lead from a component and drag it to the next component. One thing I don't like is that moving a component just slightly breaks it's connections with the circuit; I don't know what advantage this feature could serve - it would be nice if the components stayed connected until you chose to break the connection.

Student ingenuity never ceases to amaze me! I recently assigned to my students, as an introduction to circuitry, the task of building some circuit simulations. The task was to make a series, parallel and complex circuit. Most students set about making their circuits and printing out separate diagrams for each. But one student built all three together, with very cool swtiches that turn on one circuit while turning off another - this just goes to show what a great and flexibile circuit simulator Crocodile Physics is.

Click on the picture to see a better quality image!

One of the real plusses of this program are the included worksheets. Students can be assigned to work through excellent lessons that include pre-built simulations. Students are guided through a concept, for example, parallel circuits, with instructions and questions. You can get to the pre-built simulation you need through a hierarchy window;

The number of pre-built simulations is overwhelmingly impressive! You are bound to find a simulation for any particular electrical, optics or mechanical concept you wish to illustrate.

Another impressive feature is the included tutorials on how to start building simulations yourself - every included simulator has a tutorial that goes with it, so you will be up and running in no time:

One small problem with this program is that the electrical picture components are a little too large on the screen... it would be nice to be able to alter their size, but you can't. What you can do, is switch to symbol mode instead of picture mode - this easily accomplished via pull-down menu selection. All sorts of measurements can be applied to all the components, very easily. Crocodile physics get high marks for providing a great environment for free exploration of circuits - students will enjoy how easy it is to use and will definitely have fun watching the circuits respond when they are operated.

Also part of Crocodile physics is the ability to do mechanical simulations - this part of the program is a little hard to use - dragging items onto the screen is not a problem, but getting the items to do what you want is not exactly intuitive. Also lacking is an easy mechanism for configuring graphs from scratch. Also lacking are simple "start", "stop", "rewind" and "fast forward" buttons - these are a critical omission when it comes to things like momentum sims, where as a teacher you would likely want to precise control over the objects in the collision. There is a "pause" button at the top of the screen, but it would be nice to have greater control.

I quickly designed the following sims of a ball on a spring and colliding balls, but when I selected the graph feature, it displayed a plot of "voltage". The graph can be configured to track the motion of the objects... but it takes some doing.

Other minor problems... in the MacOS version of the program, the buttons to display the graph inside the simulations often did not work - this feature had to be enabled from a pull-down menu. However, once the graph was enabled, it did a good job of tracking the motion of objects. In general, the graphs axes are pre-determined and appropriate for the task.

Constructing optics simulations was much more enjoyable - it was very easy to to place prisms, mirrors, ray boxes, lights, etc on screen. The optical axis feature is spectacular, allowing you to easily perform ray diagram analysis (this feature is practically worth the purchase price alone!)

Waves simulations are also easy to construct - for example, desmonstrating harmonics in a string can be done in just a few seconds by dragging the appropriate simulator onto the screen, then tuning the string with the provided tuning fork to the harmonic you desire:

Conclusion:

Crocodile Physics is a must-have simulator for any physics classroom. It's minor shortcomings are far outweighed by the ability to easily simulate just about any physics phenomenon. The price of licensing a few computers is reasonable, and best of all, the program is very stable and reliable. There is no current native Mac OS X support, but the company is committed to developing for the Mac platform in the future. If you are teaching physics, you need to buy Crocodile Physics.