Dr. Beam is of interest to those teachers and students who want to explore more complex engineering and architectural priciples. In short, what Dr. Beam allows you to do is alter a beam's construction and support, then see how applied forces are supported by your beam design.

As the window above shows, you can add different types of supports to your beam, then witness plots of displacement, moment and shear. There is no waiting with Dr. Beam, plots are updated instantly so you can clearly see the effects of the changes on your beam.

Dr. Beam has a great set of pages for on-line help... but Dr. Beam is kind of hard to get the hang of; I'd like to see the help system integrated with the program. The biggest problem is learning to use all of the tools;

I'd be here for days if I explained in detail what all of the above do. It's safe to say that you've got the ability to do some fairly sophisticated analysis with Dr. Beam. The program even has the ability to produce instructional step-by-step movies.

I recommend that you take a look at the demo and go for a test drive with Dr. Beam. Those of you looking for a fancy, colorful, 3D application are going to be disappointed - I don't think that students are going to stick with Dr. Beam very long unless they have a very specific task or set of analyses to complete.

However, those of you that need a program for your more advanced engineering-inclined students or for some specific needs in structural studies should be very happy with Dr. Beam's capabilities. Dr. Beam does what it claims and does it well for a reasonable price... for that, ScienceMan has to give it a positive review!