Sodaconstructor

From Sodawiki

Revision as of 19:21, 4 June 2007

The daintywalker, one of the original Sodaplay models.

Sodaconstructor is a Java physics applet created by Ed Burton. It is used to create moving models with "masses, springs, and muscles."

About the Applet

Main article: Features

Masses are the only thing in the Sodaconstructor with mass, as the name implies. They are the building block of models.

Springs are semirigid connections between masses. They are governed by Hooke's constant.

Muscles are springs that change their length in a predictable manner according to a "sine wave."

You can control gravity, friction, and "springiness" within the applet.

History

The original Sodaconstructor was made in the BASIC programming language in around 1990, by Ed Burton, without muscles. In 1998, Ed joined Soda, and started to port it to Java as an exercise in Object-Oriented Programming. It was at this point hosted on the Soda website, with the original 12 models created by the Soda team.

Soon, a fan base grew around it and eventually, Ed created a save feature, forum, and zoo for discussion and sharing of models. Eventually, he also added Sodarace, a forum and applet in which constructors could create a terrain to race models along. At the same time, he added Sodaconstructor Local, an applet that people could download and play on their desktops. Another important feature for this version was the addition of XML compatibility. This let people share models as text and also make more "perfect" models.

Recently, Sodaconstructor Beta was created, adding a whole slew of new features, including "barsprings," which masses collide with, variable model height, and the ability to look at all of a person's "public" models at once.

Now, a new version of Sodaconstructor, which is being called "Sodaconstructor 2", is being developed by Soda, with Playforge, which will make it user-friendly to expand upon the applet. A mock-up is all that has been created at this point.

Genres

There are many "Genres" of models, many of which were created when Sodaplay 2 came out.

Roller Coasters

Main article: Roller Coasters

Roller Coasters are models made with barsprings which have masses "rolling" across them, usually smoothly, to create a roller-coaster like effect.

Motors

Main article: Motor

Motors are small models that have a regular motion which repeats fairly often. They are almost always used in other models instead of being used alone, and should be made using XML editing or guidelines.

Moving Models

Main article: Moving Models

• Amoebas(Rollers)
• Walkers
• Crawlers
• Sliders
• Fliers

Art

"Soda art" is usually made by placing fixed masses in a pattern so that they look like a picture, but sometimes moving art is made.