[ODE] Ways to contribute brainpower to ODE? (Higher order integrator?)

[Olivier Michel]

Yes, cylinder-cylinder collisions would be a great contribution. I would 
like to help testing things, reviewing the code and giving hints if it 
helps.

-Olivier

Jaroslav Sinecky wrote:
> How about cylinder-cylinder collisions including generating reasonable 
> contact points and depths? Is it interesting for computational physics? 
> It's more about math and geometry but be warned it's not easy. Some 
> experience with similar task or orientation in other ode collision 
> procedures and problems that it can generate would be very helpful.
> It would also include creating some test case for all possible 
> cylinder-cylinder collision situations.
>
> Jaroslav
>
>
> Ryan Gardner wrote:
>   
>> Background / About me:
>> --------------------------------
>> This is my first post the mailing list, so let me begin with a (very)  
>> brief introduction. My name is Ryan Gardner. I'm an Applied Physics  
>> major (undergrad) at BYU with an emphasis in Computer Science. I am a  
>> senior this year, and one of the things I get to (have to?) do before  
>> I graduate is a capstone project...
>>
>> My capstone project must be related to both my major and my emphasis.  
>> The most common way that people fulfill capstone projects is to find  
>> a professor doing research in an area that needs some "grunt work"  
>> and then they just kind of tag along with that.
>>
>> My original idea was to research/write about the implementation of a  
>> Physics API - and write a very basic one that would handle some  
>> simple classical mechanics demonstrations (i.e. atwoods machine, a  
>> cart on a spring, a cart on a spring with a marble rolling on top of  
>> it... etc) - but in the process of doing some background research, I  
>> found ODE and realized that there may be a chance that I could make  
>> some kind of meaningful contribution to an existing project.
>>
>> Areas I have thought about contributing:
>> -----------------------------------------------------
>> I've picked over the documentation and the source code looking for  
>> how I could help out. Here are a few of the places I see interest in  
>> developing:
>>
>> 1. A higher order integrator.
>> 2. Making some standard mechanics demos / tests (a pendulum on a cart  
>> moving on a half-pipe... a cart with a spring on an incline... etc)
>>
>> I also thought about adding in a mechanism to treat drag forces (both  
>> linear and quadratic) - but I haven't looked at the code long enough  
>> to figure out where such a mechanism would fit in, and now it would  
>> interact with the system... so that is just a side-thought.
>>
>> Are there any other areas that could use some work?
>>
>> If I can find something worthwhile to contribute to ODE - and the  
>> project gets approved by the capstone coordinator - then I would  
>> likely be working 100-200 hours on the project. (I would also be  
>> working with a faculty advisor. The advisor I have in mind is  
>> excellent at computational physics) I will start cranking away on my  
>> project as soon as I get it approved. The approval process is very  
>> short (just one person involved)
>>
>> Please let me know your thoughts about any contributions I can make,
>>
>> Ryan Gardner
>>