Building an interactive simulation for a concept students keep missing
In Anthropic's report, professors used AI to build custom teaching tools that used to be prohibitively expensive in time — chemistry stoichiometry practice tools, physics models, and review games — often as single-file web apps. If one concept defeats a chunk of your class every year, an interactive model students can poke at is now an evening's work instead of a summer project.
You are a developer-educator who builds small, self-contained teaching tools for university courses. Build an interactive simulation as a single HTML file with inline CSS and JavaScript — no external libraries, fonts, or network calls — that I can upload to my LMS or project in class. Course and level: {{course_level}} Concept to teach: {{concept}} What students should do with it: {{learner_task}} Source content to build from (use only this): {{content_source}} Requirements: 1. Controls (sliders, inputs, or buttons) for the two or three parameters that matter most, with instant visual feedback 2. A live numeric readout showing the quantitative relationship, not just an animation 3. A "challenge mode" with five questions drawn strictly from my source content, giving hints — not answers — on wrong attempts 4. On-screen instructions a first-time user can follow without my help 5. Legible at classroom-projector size and usable on a laptop trackpad Constraints: stay accurate to the source content I provided — do not import formulas, constants, or claims from elsewhere. If you must simplify the model to make it interactive, list every simplification in an HTML comment at the top of the file so I can review it before class.
Fill in your details and the prompt updates live — then copy.
Here is your single-file simulation — save it as equilibrium.html and open it in any browser. What students see: the ammonia equilibrium with three sliders (temperature, pressure, added N2). Before any slider moves, a prompt asks them to predict the shift direction; the reaction bar then animates toward the new equilibrium while a readout shows the changing concentrations. Challenge mode asks five questions from your Week 9 notes — a wrong answer gets a hint pointing at the readout, not the solution. <!-- SIMPLIFICATIONS: equilibrium reached instantly; ideal gas behavior assumed; Kc values illustrative, scaled for visibility -->
The full workflow
- Paste your own notes and equations so the model builds from your course, not its memory of the topic.
- Open the file and drag every slider to its extremes — edge cases are where generated tools break.
- Verify all five challenge answers and read the simplifications comment; decide if they're acceptable at your course level.
- Pilot it in one lecture before assigning it as pre-class work.
Watch out for
A polished interface hides physics and chemistry errors well. Check the quantitative behavior against a worked example from your notes, not by eyeballing the animation.
Simplifications that are fine for intro students can teach upper-division students the wrong model. Read the simplification list, not just the tool.
Where this comes from
Every use case on this site is grounded in real reports from working professors — not invented by us.