We designed and built animations and simulations for the American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT), from phase changes and the pH scale to voltaic cells and radioactive decay. The selected work here comes from our 2017 to 2023 archive.
The animations make processes visible: particles changing state, reactions forming new substances, a mixture separating by distillation. Each piece has its own topic and teaching sequence.
2018 · Phase-transition animation from the delivered set.
2021 · This project shipped as an animation. It remains a reference on the new app’s course map.
2023 · Distillation from the final separating-mixtures animation.
We built each simulation as its own piece. Our archive review found different navigation and answer-checking patterns across the builds. Moving between topics meant learning the controls again.
The 2026 app is a Workhorse studio concept. AACT has not commissioned or approved it.
The new app gives each topic the same three modes. Learn holds the reference material. In the Lab, a learner makes a prediction and records what happens; Practice checks answers with an explanation and a way back to the relevant lesson.
Color
We transcribed AACT’s 2014 guidelines and named colors by their role in the product. White reading surfaces carry the book’s accessible teal. Orange marks an experiment running; answer feedback also uses words and symbols.
Type
Proxima Nova carries the reading and controls. Museo Slab sets the headings, while tabular figures keep the numerical comparisons aligned.
2021 delivered build, with zinc on the left and copper on the right. Its fixed meter leads give a signed reading of −1.10 V. The rebuilt bench below reports the positive standard cell potential and names the anode and cathode explicitly.
Close the switch on the zinc and copper cell: it reads 1.10 V. Changing either electrode produces a new comparison. The bench calculates from the five reduction potentials in AACT’s 2021 build. Its moving figures illustrate the reaction’s direction; they do not measure reaction time.
Interactive chemistryOpen full app ↗Voltaic cells
Build a cell, close the circuit, then go inside the reaction. Follow the electrons from one metal to the other.
A Workhorse concept for the American Association of Chemistry Teachers.
Choose molecules and compare the forces present, watch their reference transitions. The animated study covers four substances, with rotating molecular models and a temperature sweep driven by stored transition data. Each app includes a short challenge.
Interactive chemistryOpen full app ↗Intermolecular forces
Compare molecules in motion. Warm two samples and explore how their attractions relate to their boiling points.
A Workhorse concept for the American Association of Chemistry Teachers.
Play an alpha, beta or gamma emission, pause it, and inspect the daughter nucleus. Switch to the shielding view to compare barriers in a simplified model. Each completed run leaves a result to compare.
Interactive chemistryOpen full app ↗Radioactive decay
Slow down a nuclear event. Follow what leaves the nucleus, inspect what remains, and explore shielding.
A Workhorse concept for the American Association of Chemistry Teachers.
Each standalone mini-app has an introduction, an animated experiment with a scrubbable timeline, and a three-question challenge. The specimens above run the same components as the full apps. The earlier topic library remains available as reference material.
The concept has not been evaluated in a classroom. Teacher assignments and shared learner accounts remain future work.
Live brand book
Tokens, voice, components, and patterns rendered from the source on disk. The same record powers this engagement, the product, and the agents on stack.
