Andy Hall
Game Developer behind TestTubeGames.
Enjoy building, finding, and sharing cool science through games / toys / simulations.
My games: https://testtubegames.com
Other games I love: thescienceplayground.com
he/him
- Reposted by Andy Hallimagine if all that money had gone to teachers instead
- Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com. ‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’ economist.com/united-state...
- Reposted by Andy HallBeautiful graphic of the day (because that should be a thing: Our Solar System By my data hero Eleanor Lutz
- Last chance* to join the TestTubeGames newsletter! Project updates, deep dives into the science behind my games, and links to other cool science to explore online. Delivered right to you, and not surrounded by a feed of current events. mailchi.mp/d92658cb25c4... *what?
- Reposted by Andy HallSomeone fund me to make this into a travel show where we spin the wheel and then go see the bird wherever in the world it might be. It'll have Fishing With John vibes but will also be very educational. I can give you my Venmo.
- Reposted by Andy HallIt turns out that you can create an interference pattern using light from two independent lasers. The interference arises from the quantum view that you cannot tell which laser any individual photon came from.
- Reposted by Andy HallThe Mentos challenge just got serious 🧐 See what happens when chem prof Tom Kuntzleman dds Mentos to a bottle of champagne in comparison to a different carbonated beverage. Cheers! #wsuchemistry #ChemSky #mentoschallenge #ChemEd
- Reposted by Andy HallLet’s make 2026 the year of the bog. The world’s most unique and interesting plants, clean water, cooler climate. Bogs deserve our thanks, care, and deep respect. Please join me and love a bog today.
- Intrigued by this new collection of learning games. You all know I love a good list... "Vault Game Library" vaultlearninggames.org
- When you look around a creatives discord server and realize folks have only been sharing AI-related creations for months... Hope somebody who needs this message finds it.
- For cool projects I've found made by humans: thescienceplayground.com
- ngl, I'm nervous about the future of these types of projects. Historically science projects on the web are cool and unique passion projects - even the most half-baked ones are a delightful reflection of the creators. Though I guess generic vacuous projects are *also* a reflection.
- Time for an addendum to The Science Playground's "About" page. I think this just about covers it.
- Reposted by Andy HallWriters and illustrators tend to be against AI, but where I haaave seen it crop up or be admitted to in the Kidlit arena is in creating additional resources, like activities and discussion guides. Please be assured, *nothing* I create is done with AI. Including bonus resources like these. ❤️⬇️ #NoAI
- Reposted by Andy HallHey there, I, ROCK: A Geology Tale fans. 😁🪨 Guess who's teaming up again??? This time, we aren't Earthbound... Steph Stilwell and I are back at it, taking on ASTRONOMY!!! 😃⭐🌌🔭 I am so beyond excited to announce this new #BookDeal!!!! Ahhhh!!!! 😃😃🤩 #KidLit #STEMLit #PictureBooks
- Reposted by Andy Hall👀👀👀👀👀👀 I SPY A FAMILIAR ROCK!!!!!! 😃😃😃🥳 Holy moly, THANK YOU, @slj.com!!!
- Reposted by Andy HallNew trailer for Factory Town 2 just dropped!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEcR...
- Reposted by Andy Hall4yo, getting a reasonable 2/4 right while singing How It's Done from Kpop Demon Hunters: ~~"Meals. Nails. Blade. Mosquitoes."~~
- A box of gas (blue) + dark matter (green), now with a smoother distribution at the start. (gravity + pressure + viscosity, 16k particles, periodic 2d)
- Video description: square full of green dots and blue dots spread out evenly but still randomly. They begin to slowly collapse into a web structure, then into something like galaxies. Green dark matter forms halos around the more compact blue gas clouds.
- Reposted by Andy Hall[This post could not be retrieved]
- I love this simulation of the early universe, part of our new CMB project. This is early on - (~300,000 years after the Big Bang). The universe is so hot, plasma is everywhere. Photons can't travel far, bouncing off electric charges.
- As the universe expands, it cools. Some neutral atoms (grey) are able to form briefly -- and these don't scatter the photons as much. Still the photons get bounced around. (This is at about ~360,000 years after the Big Bang.)
- And here we are at about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. The universe has cooled enough that neutral atoms are common, and loose charges are rarer. Photons can finally travel in mostly straight lines. Some of them traveled in mostly straight lines for billions and billions of years, in fact!
- It's this light that forms the Cosmic Microwave Background that we see today. This ancient light tells a pretty cool story about its journey. To learn a bit more, the first part of our project is available here: testtubegames.com/cmbjourney.h...
- Some more 'gas' particles - this time two clumps in orbit. Pretty dangerous tides, if you ask me. (16k particles, gravity + pressure + viscosity)
- Video description: two disks of blue particles nearby one another - they start uniform, then each collapse into spinning objects. The orbit around each other, though one is larger, and pulls a bit off the small one on the near-point of each orbit.
- Oops, the gas simulation made a Saturn, I guess? (8k particles, all feeling gravity + pressure + viscosity)
- Video description: Large blue circular shape in the middle, surrounded by many dots swirling in a diffuse ring pattern. We zoom in and see the central 'planet' is made up of thousands of dots packed closely together.
- Reposted by Andy Hall"If we lose hope, we're doomed." We must continue Dr. Jane Goodall's mission and all fight for the future of the planet.
- Related physics puzzle - can you figure out this SPOOKY force law? Bonus point: If this force law were to dress up for Halloween, what costume would it wear?
- Video description: Particles arranged into a ghost, pumpkin, and hat as before - but now when the ghost and hat fall in towards the pumpkin, they emerge out the other side. Intact, yet flipped. They go back and forth like that.
- Tis a season. Why does the ghost behave the way the ghost does? An eternal, and in this case, very specific, question. (Single central pumpkin-y mass, gravity with a 1/r^2 force law.)
- Video description: Bunch of particles drawn into a row shapes - white ghost, orange jack-o-lantern, and a blue witch's hat. The ghost and hat start drifting into the center, before getting flung out past it again. This repeats, slowly stretching them into unrecognizable shapes.
- Reposted by Andy HallExplore the mysteries of quantum mechanics with our Quantum Measurement sim! Prepare & measure superposition states, dive into photon polarization, and experiment with Stern-Gerlach setups. phet.colorado.edu/en/simulatio... #physics #chatphysics #STEM
- Reposted by Andy HallSimulating a disk of gas. (Gravity + Pressure + Viscosity, 16k particles)
- To understand the CMB map... you need to know a bit about Blackbody Spectrum. So we've included a fully interactive spectrum. Slide the temperature to your heart's content! testtubegames.com/cmbjourney.h...
- The CMB pattern you see drawn is actually a map of different temperatures... But the temperature differences are tiny. If you look at the blackbody curve... the 'hot' spots and 'cold' spots are nearly identical. Good luck telling the difference...
- Video: Same photons and bar graph as before, this time the temperature changes are smaller, matched to a CMB key in the corner. As we swipe from hot to cold, the red curve barely changes. Text: Even zoomed in like this, the difference between hot and cold is incredibly small and hard to detect.
- Reposted by Andy HallThis question got me interested... So, here's the same sim in 3d, a true box of 'gas'. (Gravity + Pressure + Viscosity, 16k particles. Rotating slowly to help make the structures visible.)
- Reposted by Andy HallWe’re live!! My brand-new course, “Whimsical Animations”, is now available. 🥳🎉 whimsy.joshwcomeau.com I’m so excited to share all of my animation tools and techniques with y’all. 😄
- Now, instead of 50/50 -- here's a cloud that's 80% dark matter, 20% normal matter. A bit closer to our universe (which sits around 85%). (I turn the dark matter halos invisible occasionally so you can see the gas structures.)
- Video description: Swirling sphere of green and blue dots as before, collapsing inward. This time they expand a bit more after the collapse, spreading into several distinct galaxies, each surrounded by dark matter.
- A mix of both Dark Matter (green) and Gas (blue). What do you notice? (16k particles, gravity, gas feels pressure + viscosity also, 3D with view slowly rotating to showcase structures.)
- Video description: Spherical cloud of green and blue dots, collapsing inward while spinning slowly. Forms a relatively compact swirling flat disk in the center, though the dark matter is spread out a bit more widely than the gas at the end. The gas forms what almost looks like a swirling galaxy.
- Ooh, this time a spherical cloud of gas, initially spinning slowly. No periodic boundary conditions now, just let it collapse. ...whoa. (Gravity + Pressure + Viscosity, 16k particles.)
- Video description: Cloud of blue dots slowly spinning as it gets smaller. Collapses into tiny cloud before exploding a bit outward, forming the swirling shape of a galaxy.
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View full threadAnd to compare, here's the same setup without pressure or viscosity. So, imagine dark matter instead of a gas. (Gravity, 16k particles, periodic boundary. Rotating to help make structures visible.)
- Video description: rotating cube filled with scattered green particles that slowly coalesce into clumps, first small, then combining into larger and larger clouds.
