Welcome to the magic world of Excel animation!
– All the animated models are created using plain MS Excel and VBA.
– All the Excel files and PDF tutorials can be downloaded from BLOG page.
– All the downloads on this site are FREE and there are hundreds of them.
Hello!
Finding engineering work quite unchallenging lately I decided to start this blog in which to share cool ways of solving engineering problems or just interesting modeling of natural phenomena in MS Excel 2003.
I use cell formulas and VBA in order to take advantage of the ease of “programming” and the native speed of the Excel spreadsheet.
My name is George Lungu and I am the author of this blog. In my daily life I am a circuit designer.
Why bother with this blog?
1. It’s science, it’s physics, it’s electronics, mechanics, games …you name it. You could also suggest future directions of development
2. Engineering is coming back in force and it will rule again. Lots of people nowadays want to either manage or market that’s why we need more engineers.
3. It might be boring at times but it’s very useful stuff. I will give it a sugar coating by producing “live” models with at least some catchy animations and sound effects
4. You can understand most of it with just a high a school background. No computer language is necessary. A little visual basic (VBA) will be involved but you’ll learn that on-the-fly. We do search Wikipedia occasionally here but as a last resort.
5. If you follow this and begin to model your own ideas with your own methods you could build some real understanding of engineering. School is good for acquiring discipline and a background, but only you can teach yourself deep knowledge by personal experience. Learn by having fun!
6. This blog it’s just a lure. The best and most effective teacher lives inside you.
7. The most important aspect: no matter what you want to do, start by thinking and experimenting before reading or asking someone else (no matter who).
Trust me on this one, you are far smarter than you think (if you dare to use your mind).
One month of continuous pondering and experimentation will get you farther than a year of school.
Learn slowly, speed is a big spoiler. The traditional education system is built on speed and superficiality.
“External teachers” were taught one thing: compliance. And that’s what they will teach you.
Trust your “inner teacher” instead. You won’t be disappointed.
Why Excel?
- Excel is cheap and and you can find it everywhere.
- It’s a good environment to do complex programming without being a programmer. It gives you the feel of of a bread board. A donkey could use it…
- As opposed to regular programming languages, Excel is a two-dimensional programming canvass
- Excel has decent built in graphics (I like using 2D scatter plots)
- As a 2D matrix calculator, Excel it’s wickedly fast
- Excel has decent GUI capabilities within the program itself
- Programming in Excel gives you more understanding of physical processes than “black box” type programs such as Matlab, Simulink, Octave since in Excel you build everything from basic formulas
All right, Excel, but why versions to use?
2007 is slow and bugsy. While most of the models should work in most versions, if one is serious about speed, Excel 2003 or earlier is a better choice. In terms or charting speed the new Excel is about 10 times slower than the old Excel (see a 2008 study here). By the same study, with 1023 MB of RAM, the Excel 2007 Line charts take 15 to 22 times as long to redraw as the Excel 2003. The recalculation time is also slower in the new Excel, but only by about 30% (study).
And why Microsoft?
I have to admit that for introductory scientific modeling, Excel is a great overall choice out there. Though I am not against product evolution, I decry the drop in speed (mainly charting speed) in the last versions of Excel. And by the way, while Open Office “Calc” is alright for filling taxes, it is about one order of magnitude slower than Excel for large calculations. I admire the open-source initiatives though.
https://www.mail-archive.com/users@openoffice.org/msg80893.html
I do not know if this is the place to ask this question, but I find no where else: George Lungu or someone has programmed a “slide rule” in Excel?
Thanks in advance.
(Google translation)
Hello:
Exists some “slide rule” emulator in excel ?
Thanks, Terry.
CONGRATULATIONS! I’m having a LOT of fun with your blog… ;D regards from brazil
Hi
Just discovered your site – wish I’d found it 2 years ago when I had some down-time! Was then looking for more creative ways to use excel, and getting frustrated with 2007! Thanks for re-sparking my interest.
Love the Harmonograph sheets, and the Spring Mass Dampers. I’m a Maths/Calculus teacher, always looking to link maths to other areas. Changing parameters and using differential equations in simple but unique/interesting ways (with that all-important physics link) will add that little spark of interest I’m looking for.
Just wondering if (when/if you start adding to your site again), you will be doing anything for 2010 or do you think you will be sticking to 2003?
Hope the house is going well!
Regards, Jill
Hi Jill, I am totally swamped with the building now. About the 2010 version I need to see. Excel moves in the wrong direction and with 2007 – 2010 my models are barely crawling if working at all. There is little incentive for me to do anything about it especially that last year Google penalized me and cut my visitors to a third. It has barely recovered to a half. I might consider Java or someting similar but in a new blog. Besides, most people don’t take excel seriously though for self education there is simply no better tool than the old Excel. The new one is only good for very simple models because of charting speed. I am not an Excel expert or any type of programmer. To me the platform is irrelevant but I am still fond of the ease anyone can program almost anything in excel. Thanks for the comment, George
Hy George
Have you tutorial about heat trasfer during solidification process 2D ?
Joko, Sorry, I don’t.
sorry to hear about your house. i hope u recovered now.
Thanks. Yes, we will recover and wel’ll be rebuilding.
Hi,
Why have you stopped your great articles on this site?
regards,
Jagmohan
Hi Jagmohan,
My house burned down and I am in a soul searching phase. I will eventually get back to work for the blog. Right now I am learning about architecture and how to use Google Sketchup since we are going to rebuild. Please give me some G+’s or FB Likes. It helps my traffic. Thanks!
Cheers, George
Sad to hear about your house, George. If you are looking for more traffic, I will put a link to your site from mine and add to Linked in, G+ and FB. Hopefully it will help.
Thanks Nitin!
Salut George!
Felicitari pentru ce faci! Esti de un real ajutor!
Doar o intrebare… De ce nu esti pe G+ ? As vrea sa pot urmari blogul tau de-acolo (pe mobil etc..)
Toate cele bune si tine-o tot asa!
Hello George,
First of all , congratulations for what you do! You are huge help for me and others like me. Just a question.. Why aren’t you present on G+ ? I would like to follow your posts from there.
Best regards and keep up the good work!
Multam Bogdan, Nu sint din simpla ignoranta. O sa ma interesez cum sa fac un cont. Multam pentru sugestie, George
Hi George,
Im currently doing on a simulator with Excel. Its about car crash ( 2 or 3 car will moving on the road, it will crash when 2 car or more bang together. The user have to drag the car icon to the road ( cells which is coloured by black colour )
Im using .Left and .Top to make the car icon moving on the cell.
My main problem is, how can i set the car direction. For Example, T-junction.
————————————————–
A ->
<- B
—————-| |————————
| |
| X |
1. how can i set when A is drag to this Lane, A will move to the right. When B is in this lane, it move to left and also for X which moving up.
Thanks thanks thanks.
Regards
Alvin