Lab
Change a number and watch the idea move
Six simulations you can take apart, sitting inside the lessons where seeing the thing behave beats reading about it.
- simulations, free on every plan
- 6simulations, free on every plan
- and standalone
- In the lessonand standalone
- a configuration
- Save and sharea configuration
Play with the idea
Interactive simulations you can pull apart and put back together. Drag a pendulum, shift a supply curve, build a molecule in 3D — the concept becomes something you can hold.
Featured
Pendulum Lab
Adjust length, gravity, mass and damping — watch the period change.
Molecule Builder
Build molecules in 3D and see their VSEPR shapes and bond angles.
Roman Empire Timeline
Scrub from 753 BC to 476 AD and watch Rome’s reach grow and recede.
Physics (1)
Math (1)
Economics (1)
History (1)
Chemistry (2)
Everything in it
Everything in the Lab
Six is a real number, not a marketing one. Here is each of them, and what you actually manipulate.
The simulations
Every one is free, on every plan.
Pendulum Lab
Change length, gravity, mass, and damping, and watch the period. Mass is included so you can prove to yourself it does nothing.
Function Grapher
Plot several functions at once, transform them, and trace a tangent along a curve.
pH Scale
Add acids and bases to a beaker and read the pH by color, the way the lab bench actually looks.
Molecule Builder
Build molecules in 3D and see the VSEPR shape and bond angles fall out of the geometry.
Supply and Demand
Drag the curves and watch equilibrium price and quantity move. Shifts stop being a memorized diagram.
Roman Empire Timeline
Scrub from 753 BC to 476 AD and watch Rome expand and recede on the map.
How you use them
Embedded in a lesson
A sim appears at the point in the lesson where it helps, with the values already set for that example.
On their own
Open any sim directly and play with it, with no lesson wrapped around it.
As a study block
A simulation can be a block in a Nook session, timed alongside the rest of the work.
Save a configuration
Keep the exact setup that made the point, and come back to it before the exam.
Share what you built
A configuration has a link. Useful for a group chat at 11pm, or for a teacher setting up a demonstration.
Export the data
Pull the numbers out of a run, for a lab write-up that needs a table rather than a screenshot.
Built to be usable
A text alternative
Where a sim needs 3D and the device cannot do it, there is a written description rather than a broken canvas.
Readable controls
Named sliders with live readouts, so you always know what you changed and what it did.
Reset in one tap
Get back to the default state without reloading, which matters when you are exploring on purpose.
Why it works
Intuition first, then the formula
The order most classes get backwards, and the reason a simulation is worth building at all.
- 01 · Play
You break it on purpose
Make the pendulum absurdly long. Set gravity to the Moon. The wrong answers are where the feel comes from.
- 02 · Notice
A pattern shows up
Mass changes nothing. Length changes everything, and not proportionally. You noticed that yourself.
- 03 · Learn
The equation arrives late
The formula is now a description of something you have already seen, which is a much cheaper thing to remember.
- 04 · Study
And it becomes a card
The relationship goes into a deck, and spaced repetition keeps it there until the exam.
They live where the lesson needs them
A simulation is most useful in the ninety seconds after a concept is introduced and before you are asked to use it. Lessons embed the sim at that exact point, with the parameters preset for the example on the screen.
Cell Membranes and Transport
Why water moves the way it does
Water does not move toward "more solute" because it is drawn to sugar. It moves because a membrane lets water through while holding solute back, and the two sides settle their water potential.
Water potential has two parts:
- Solute potential falls as solute is added. Pure water sits at 0; every dissolved particle pushes it negative.
- Pressure potential rises when something pushes back, which is exactly what a plant cell wall does.
Water always travels from higher water potential to lower water potential.
A potato core in salt water shrinks. A potato core in distilled water stiffens. Same tissue, opposite gradient.
That single rule covers every tonicity question you will see on the exam. Read the outside solution, compare it to the inside of the cell, and follow the water.
What it does not do yet
- Six simulations, not sixty
- Physics, math, chemistry, economics, and history have one each, with chemistry having two. More are being built, and we would rather ship six good ones than claim a library.
- 3D needs a capable device
- Molecule Builder needs WebGL. On a device without it you get a written alternative rather than a blank box.
Where the Lab fits
The Lab exists so that understanding comes before memorizing, and then the rest of Slate keeps the memory.
Open a simulation now
All six are free, on every plan, with no account needed to read the lessons around them.